


Panem et Circenses

by henghost



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 42,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21629488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henghost/pseuds/henghost
Summary: Circus shows back up to try and convince Skitter to turn her territory into an anarchist utopia.
Relationships: Circus/Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver
Comments: 54
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CW: White Supremacy.

“So, okay,” said Circus, “you’ve assumed total control of the area, that’s undeniable. And it’s not even like there’s any major competition. So, essentially, what I wanted to ask you is: what are you going to do with it? The land. Because, I mean, for all intents and purposes, you own it. Sure, it’s not like you have a deed or title or anything like that, but those were always just pieces of paper anyway, and the fact remains, this whole area belongs to you. That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“And you think I’m doing a bad job?” said Skitter.

“Not bad, but this is more than a responsibility — this is an opportunity. You’ve basically led a successful revolt against the US government. You’ve  _ seceded _ . And it’d be a real shame if things just stayed the same.”

Speaking to Skitter, Circus felt like a peasant coming before a queen, and they loathed it. She was slouched villainously in a big plush armchair, and she hadn’t let Circus get too close for fear of some kind of ambush. This ‘plea’ was going to be like pulling teeth, Circus knew. So why try at all? The reason they would give if asked was that it was their duty to help, to advance this noble cause, but that didn’t tell the whole story, did it?

“That’s kind of an exaggeration,” said Skitter. “There’s no Declaration of Independence, or a new constitution, or anything like that.”

“Let me ask you this: do you pay taxes? Any kind — federal or state.”

“Well… no. I don’t exactly have a source of income. A legal one, I mean.”

“And do the people who live around here pay taxes?”

“Uh, I mean, I don’t think so. I’m their primary employer for the most part, and I don’t exactly give out W2s. Maybe some of them have jobs in other parts of the city. I don’t know.”

“But you collect payments from them?”

“Sure. Only from the people who can afford it. So I can afford to help out the poorer ones without having to rely on an external stream of revenue.”

“That sounds like  _ you’re  _ collecting taxes. A progressive tax, but still. And then but so to reiterate: The operation you’re running here consists of people who pay taxes to you and not the US Federal Government. A group that isn’t beholden to any US penal code. A group who, I’m sure you would agree, is loyal to  _ you _ , Supreme Leader Skitter, above any mayor or governor or president. What would you call that? I’d call it an independent nation.”

“Don’t call me Supreme Leader.”

“Ah — that brings me to my next point. What gives you the right to be in charge of this fledgling nation-state? I mean, seriously, that’s not a rhetorical question.”

“A lot of things. Coil gave me this plot of land to begin with, and I’ve protected the people here from the worst kinds of monsters. For the most part.”

“So there wasn’t, like, an election?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“So everyone just unanimously chose you as their leader.”

“Not  _ unanimously _ .”

“Oh? And what did you do with the dissenters?”

“I kicked them out. Or, you know, scared them. What else would I have done?”

“Skitter, what you’re describing is called a military dictatorship.”

Skitter sighed a long, exasperated sigh, which was amplified by the black swarm hovering around her head. “Look, Circus,” she said. “I don’t know where all this is coming from, and to a certain extent I don’t care. I barely even know you. I’d kind of forgotten about you, to be a hundred percent honest, after all the shit with Coil. And you show up at my secret lair — which I’m not even going to  _ ask  _ how you found — all to try and convince me to be, what, a more liberal leader? I’ve got important shit to deal with at the moment. I can’t hear out every radical armchair revolutionary who wants to use my territory to establish their weird utopias.”

Circus was going to respond, but was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing. 

“Speaking of important shit,” said Skitter, and she removed a cellphone from an unseen pocket, flipped it open, put it to her ear, and said, “Hello?”

Silence for a moment. 

There was something electric in the way Skitter spoke, especially when she was condescending. She hardly moved, simply let her thoughts tumble out over her tongue, and she didn’t care what you thought afterwards. A true warlord. And although for Circus that mode of thought symbolized everything wrong with society, they wanted to hear her speak again.

Then, Skitter: “Jesus, really? Right now? Fuck. Okay, fine. Goddamnit.” And she hung up.

“What is it?” asked Circus.

“Nazis — I don’t even know what they’re calling themselves now — they’re holding a recruitment rally a couple blocks down, and I should probably, you know, go and sting them or something. Unless you’re worried that would, like, restrict their freedom of speech?”

“No, not at all. Let me come with you.”

Another sigh. “Fine. I guess. They might be armed.”

“Cool.”

#

They walked through the middle of the street, obscured from onlookers by a buzzing black wall that danced and swirled with the flow of the wind. Skitter walked so fast Circus had to skip to keep up. Up close, Circus saw how scrawny she truly was. Lithe. Like she would stumble from the slightest breeze. All of which, of course, belied the iron-will within. 

“And another thing,” said Circus between bouts of panting. “Let me know if I’m off the mark here, but you strike me as someone who’s wary of authority.”

“You mean like the Protectorate? Sure. I guess ‘wary’ would be a good word.”

“Yeah, them, but I mean all kinds of authorities. Government officials, CEOs, cops, teachers, even parents. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten along with all of them.”

“I guess not.”

“Right. And why should you? They’re corrupt, they abuse their power — we’ve both seen this first hand. So, having said that, let me ask you, what makes you any different?”

Skitter stumbled slightly, and she turned her head away. “I’m just. I have compassion and empathy. I’m basically a good person. That’s what makes me different. I care.”

“Okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I believe you when you say you’re a good person. Or, at least, I believe that  _ you  _ believe that. But how long have you been in power? I mean, it’s obviously a cliche, but power corrupts. I know you know that. So, I’ll ask again, what makes you any different?”

They turned a corner and were confronted by a sea of bald, white heads, all turned up to face a man on the stage who looked exactly the same as the rest of them. Strokes of color were added to the scene by red and black Swastikas, American flags, signs with racial slurs, confederate flags.

Circus put a hand on Skitter’s shoulder and said, “Before you start stinging or whatever, let’s just listen for a second.”

“What? Why?”

“Information.”

“That’s a debate I’m not really prepared to have.”

“Come on. Thirty seconds. It’ll be instructive.”

“Thirty seconds.”

They turned to listen to the man onstage, who was clad in faded denim and black leather, speaking into a cordless microphone: “...to be white. It is your gift from God. It is your heritage. It is your legacy. Do not let anyone convince you it isn’t okay to be white. Because it is. In fact, it’s more than okay, it’s  _ better than anything else _ . People tell me to respect the [black people], to treat them as if they were equal to me. But I know better. I am white, and they are not. This is not hate, this is not bigotry, this is science. Let me tell you, I’ve looked at the data — to be white is to be stronger, smarter, be—”

The man was cut off by a fleet of wasps perching on his neck and driving their venom into his flesh. Screams from the crowd. The man toppled off the stage, sputtering and convulsing, and those close enough to see all this scurried away like rats. Those closer to the back, to Skitter and Circus, were not so lucky. 

A legion of bugs fell from the sky like some biblical plague. Circus withdrew a grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it with perfect accuracy into the center of a fleeing gang of surly supremacists, and they ran out of the resulting cloud clutching their faces and crying.

It ended as soon as it began.

Breathing heavily in the now-empty street, Circus turned to face Skitter, who didn’t give any indication she’d just been in combat, and said, “Let me tell you why I wanted to listen to that guy.”

Skitter didn’t say anything, buzzed instead.

“I wanted to listen to him because you and him are two sides of the same coin — the coin of power. I don’t think you’re a bigot, Skitter, but the reason you’re in charge around here, even if you refuse to admit it, is because you believe that you’re more powerful than anyone else. Which, of course, is more than a belief — you’re strong, anyone could see that. Few people on this planet could hold a candle to your strength. But why is that? I don’t think you’re dumb, I don’t think you’re anything other than a strategic genius, but, above all, your strength is due to this gift that some unknown entity chose to give you. That’s why you’re in charge.”

“But what does that have to do with white supremacy?”

“White supremacists believe that the white race is the race of God, that to be on top is their divine right, and that any ethnic minority that can’t see that deserves to die. All you’ve done, Skitter, in the creation of your new nation-state, is exchange the word ‘white’ in that sentence with ‘parahuman’.”

“First of all, harsh. Second of all, like, white people aren’t better than everyone else, obviously. But parahumans kind of are, right? I mean, there are some incompetent fucking capes, but even they could demolish a non-cape in a fight. Not everyone is created equal.”

“You’re right. Not everyone is equal, they never have been. Some people are born prettier, smarter, stronger. But that doesn’t mean they deserve more than everyone else. ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their need’.”

Skitter appeared to rub her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Okay, look, I get it. Jesus, you’re like a tick, Circus, you know that? Except I’d actually be able to make a tick go away. I mean, can we finish this another time? I’m exhausted.”

“Sure, but let me leave you with my proposition. Step down from power, get your Undersider commandants to do the same, destroy all forms of hierarchy in your territory, destroy private ownership, create a more just society — it’s the least you could do.”

“I’ll think it over.”

“That’s all I can ask for.”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Referenced suicide attempt.

On her daily jog, Taylor surveyed the crescent curve of The Bay and was appalled, just as she had been the day before, and the day before, and the day before. Smog lifted off the derelict tenements and dilapidated storefronts and decrepit infrastructure, coalescing into a big plume that rose above it all like a gaseous monument to misery. It got in her eyes and her nose and clumped up in her throat until she had to stop running and cough it all up. How could people live here without suffocating?

While catching her breath, she spotted a group of dock workers on a break. They sat on the curb and smoked and ate cheap snacks from brown paper bags. It was clear they were dock workers because of the uniforms they wore — neon vest, hard hat — and also because of the briny scent that reached Taylor from several yards away. A smell she associated with the return of her father from a long day of work, and with the accompanying warmth of his embrace. She smiled absently. 

Then, just as she was going to start running again, a short man in an ill-fitting suit came out of a trailer nearby and marched over to the group of workers. He shouted at them — Taylor couldn’t make out the words — and, sheepishly, the working men packed away their food and wiped their hands on their pants and headed off back toward the crates and cranes in the distance.

The short man, now beet-red, saw Taylor watching him and shouted at her: “What are you looking at, bitch?” and then returned to the trailer, slamming the door behind him. The trailer, which was on wooden stilts, probably an office, was adorned with a sign that read, “Smith Shipping Inc.”

_ They’re corrupt, they abuse their power… What makes you any different? _

Taylor walked up the trailer’s wooden stairs and pounded on the flimsy-feeling door. The man opened it, and, immediately sensing Taylor’s intentions, put his hands up in front of him and made his eyes wide, like a prey animal. “Woah,” he said. “Hey. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, really sorry. Long day. Really sorry.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. Relax.” Taylor was probably a foot taller than this man, who, up close, smelled sickly-sweet, like cheap perfume. 

“Oh. Heh heh, that’s good. I didn’t think you would.”

“What’s your name?”

“Me? Uh, Strickham. Jeff Strickham.”

“Why were you yelling at those guys just now, Jeff?”

“They were, uh, taking too long on their break. I keep tellin’ ‘em, fifteen minutes  _ max _ ! But they don’t listen, heh heh, of course. Hey, lady, look, please don’t tell my boss about this. It’s just been really—”

“I thought you were the boss, Jeff.”

“What? Well, yeah, but everyone has a boss.”

And in one fluid motion Taylor swept her right leg under Jeff’s legs, and when he fell he smashed his forehead against the metallic frame of the door, which sent a thin splatter of blood tumbling through the air and onto the front of Taylor’s athletic top. When he hit the ground, there was a sound like a branch breaking. A cursory check of his pulse revealed that he hadn’t died on the spot, which was probably a good thing, although it left Taylor feeling restless and unsatisfied as she ran on through the crumbling remains of Brockton Bay.

#

Brian showed up in the afternoon. He seemed cheery and full of vigor, and he and Taylor spent most of the day tangled up in each other’s arms, dozing in Taylor’s bed. They barely spoke, which for them meant contentment. The humidity was low and the sky was cloudless. There was nothing to do, and if there was it could wait until tomorrow. 

The only interruption came a little after three when Charlotte turned up with a pallet of non-perishables for distribution among the masses, and she and Taylor had this brief exchange:

“Where does most of this food come from?” asked Taylor.

“Like, the grocery store, mostly,” said Charlotte.

“It’d be nice if we didn’t have to buy it, right? If we grew it ourselves.”

“Well, sure, but there’s nowhere to grow food around here.”

“Hm. You’re probably right. Still, we could probably set up some gardens or something.”

“Would you like me to do that?”

“Would  _ you  _ like to do that?”

“Uh, it’s kind of your decision, though, isn’t it?”

“I’m asking your opinion.”

“I mean, it might be expensive, but, yeah, it’d be good to take advantage of the spring and the excess of water. I actually took a class on agriculture when I was still in school.”

“Great. That sounds great. And we definitely have the money. You’re not too busy, are you?”

“No, not at all. Damn, now I’m excited.”

“Cool, go ahead then. And, Charlotte?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to treat me like, you know, your boss.”

“But… you are, though. My boss.”

“...”

When the sun went down, Taylor reasoned it was probably something he should know, and so she told Brian: “You know who came around here yesterday? Circus. Can you believe that?”

“What? I thought they were, like, in hiding.”

“Me too. But they came back to tell me to, like, create a kind of commune or something like it in our territory and get rid of private ownership and all that.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah. Like, that’s not exactly feasible, right?”

“You mean turning a small section of Northeastern America into a new Soviet Union? No, probably not.”

“It would be nice, though, don’t you think? 

“Wow. I had no idea I was dating a commie.” (Taylor slapped his arm lightly, giggling.).

“I mean,” continued Brian, “if there was no private property, would that mean you wouldn’t be  _ my  _ girlfriend?” 

Taylor gave Brian a look full of malice, eyebrows raised, and she punched his arm hard enough to make him groan, and he returned the favor, and then they were wrestling, and wrestling escalated into lovemaking, after which they both collapsed under the luscious, high thread count sheets and slept without dreaming.

#

The next day, Taylor stopped by her father’s house (she no longer thought of it as  _ her  _ house). He let her in wordlessly and went to the kitchen to pour a drink from a tumbler filled with amber liquid while Taylor apologized for being late. This was a scheduled appointment, which they’d both agreed were good to have — so they didn’t lose touch again. Taylor had yet to make it to one on time.

Her dad sat on the old leather sofa and sipped from his drink. His face was pale and moist-looking. Taylor sat next to him and, with great effort, put her head on his shoulder and said, “Sorry again. I’ve just been really busy lately, and, you know, I’ve never been the best at time management.”

As if in a trance, he responded, “Oh, sorry — I’m not mad at you. It’s just work. Long day, I guess.” He downed the rest of the glass.

“Did something happen?”

“It’s all bullshit, Taylor. All of it. And it’s… No, nevermind. I'm sure you've heard this rant before.”

“Go ahead. You’re really good at ranting.”

He smiled wanly, just for a moment. “It’s just, I’ve been trying to make the docks better since before you were born, Taylor, which, as you know, I’ve never had much luck with. Some small successes, but nothing ever really changes. Sometimes I can’t remember why I even started. It’s pointless. It’s always been pointless. I mean, I thought things would change after Leviathan. It was an awful tragedy, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes fire — or water, I guess — is cleansing. But I was so goddamn naive. I see that now… I need another drink.”

He stood up and went to the kitchen and pulled a flask from a high cabinet and put it to his lips for a few seconds. He sat at the dining table behind Taylor and said, “There’s so much work to be done, now that everything’s in ruins, which you would think is a good thing. Normally there aren’t enough shifts to go around. But there’s just so much bullshit, Taylor. Strikes and scabs and company owners in different fucking countries. Sorry for swearing. And so the bottom line of it all is that the tradespeople, the people who’ve spent their whole lives working at the docks, they’re not getting paid.

“Like, do you remember Devon? Big burly guy? I’m sure you met him. Devon told me the other day that for the past month he’s been eating a diet consisting solely of instant oatmeal and spaghetti, because not only have food prices gone up, but he’s been lucky to get one full shift a week. And, maybe because of that, he says he’s in pain all the time, and of course his insurance is shit, so he can’t afford to see a doctor. And today… Jesus…”

Taylor stood up and saw that her father was crying. His glasses were on the table and his face was in his hands. She hadn’t seen him cry since around the time her mom died. 

“Dad,” she said, and she stood behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, berating herself inwardly for how awkward she felt doing it. “It’s okay.”

After taking another long drink from the sterile-smelling flask and wiping away the mucus on his upper lip, her dad said, “Today, while everyone was on their lunch break, Devon climbed up the side of one of the cranes and jumped off.”

“Oh my god,” said Taylor. “Is he okay?”

“Just some broken bones. But how is he going to pay the medical bills?”

They spent the rest of their time together watching a comedy movie on TV that had been a box-office hit, but which was awful — neither of them laughed once. When it was (finally) over, her dad said, “Hey, um, this is a little embarrassing, but if you’re making money, um, do you think you could lend me a little? It’s just, you know, they haven’t been able to pay me as much recently, and the rent’s gone up, so, you know.”

“Uh,” said Taylor. “Let me get back to you on that.” And she left.

#

The next morning, just before she was about to head out for a costumed patrol, an underling informed her that, “Someone dressed like a clown says you two have a meeting”. Taylor told them to let the clown in. The two met in the terrarium-room, sitting in metal chairs across from one another.

“So,” said Circus. 

“So,” said Taylor.

“Have you reached a decision?”

“You mean about the revolution?”

“In so many words. Although, the great thing about  _ you  _ making the decision is that the revolution wouldn’t have to be a violent workers uprising or anything.”

“Great. No. I haven’t reached a decision.”

“You haven’t reached a decision.”

“I mean, some of the things you’re talking about sound good. But, I don’t know, I’m not sure I’m ready for something so  _ radical _ .”

Circus made a noise that sounded like a scoff. “No, you’re right, Skitter. We should implement change slowly. It’s not like people are starving to death every second. It’s not like all your accumulated wealth could save thousands of lives  _ right this very moment _ if only you didn’t cling on to it like some modern Scrooge. No, we should be slow. Thoughtful. I’m being sarcastic, by the way.”

“Couldn’t tell.”

“Look, Skitter, I know for a fact that you’ve seen the devastating consequences of a society run for the sole purpose of generating profit. I know you’ve seen the symptoms of the cancer that is hierarchy. You can’t escape it. Walking here, Skitter, I saw people dressed in rags. I saw the clear outline of people’s ribs. I saw people sleeping on cold concrete, and I saw rooms for sale the next block down. This is in  _ your  _ territory. The blood is on  _ your  _ hands. So, no, I don’t think anything less than immediate action is going to cut it.”

“Okay, relax for a second. It’s just, I mean, I don’t think it’s a super plausible option at the moment. Like, we’d be effectively isolating ourselves from the rest of the world, and we kind of need the rest of the world — we can’t provide everything ourselves. My ‘accumulated wealth’ wouldn’t last forever, and it’s not like there’s a ton of profit being generated within the confines of my territory.”

“Details, Skitter. We can take over a factory by force if we need to, we have the firepower. We can grow our own food. We can provide for  _ everyone _ . But that comes second. Revolution comes first.”

Taylor was silent for a moment. Voices in her head:  _ Everyone has a boss… Strikes and scabs… The rent’s gone up… How is he going to pay the medical bills…? What are you looking at, bitch…? It’s all bullshit… All of it… CEOs, cops, teachers, even parents… I know you haven’t gotten along with all of them… Supreme Leader Skitter… What makes you any different? What makes you any different? What makes you any different? What makes you any different? _

Then she sighed and said, “Okay, fuck it. Let’s do it.”


	3. Chapter 3

If the Undersiders were the judges, Circus was the defendant, all alone on the opposite side of the bench (the bench, in this case, being a long card table, flanked on either end by slightly enlarged dogs). The costumes enhanced the courtroom sensation, although, of course, the Undersiders’ were of a decidedly edgier nature. Blacks and purples and shadows and hovering bugs, all in stark opposition to the red and yellow harlequin before them. 

Tattletale, who stood alone in the corner of the room, said, “Circus!” in a strained voice. “Where have you been?”

Circus: Around.

Tattletale: Man, it’s been ages. Missed having you around. Kind of.

Skitter: So — the business at hand.

Tattletale: Oh yeah.  _ Anarchy!  _ Woo.”

Imp: Hell yeah!

Skitter: It’s what I’ve decided. Circus’s policies are what my territory is going to operate under. And, ideally, I’d like all of you to join me in that decision. So, I brought Circus here to assuage any doubts you might have.   


Grue (in his low, hollow voice): I trust your judgement, Skitter. I’ll do what you think is best.

Bitch: Same. Just leave me alone when you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing. Can I go now? 

Skitter nodded, and, with her dogs trotting behind her, Bitch left the room.

Imp: I’m also into the idea. It sounds pretty badass.

Tattletale: You’re only saying that because you think an anarchist society is going to be like the anarchist cookbook.

Imp: No! Although that’d be pretty awesome too. I’m into it because, like, laws fucking suck. That’s why I got into this business in the first place.

Circus: If you want to create crime, first create laws. If you want to create thieves, first create property.

Imp: Yeah, see — that’s badass.

Regent: I don’t know. I kind of like being on top. I mean, my name’s  _ Regent _ .

Circus: You wouldn’t have to change your name. Just your position.

Imp: Don’t worry about him, Circ’. He’s kind of a sociopath. He’ll do what we tell him. (To which Regent responded by catching Imp in a headlock, which of course he couldn’t keep her in.)

Tattletale: I’ve got some concerns, to put it mildly. I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve got, like, a shitton of money. You’re telling me you’re gonna take all of it?

Circus: Well, yes. The cost of your wealth is the despair of innocents. 

Tattletale: But I earned that money, Circus. And in fact, the Undersiders wouldn’t be in the position they’re in without that money. My money. You want to take that away? We’re the only thing bringing stability to Brockton Bay. Without us in charge, you’re right, it will be anarchy. As in chaos, pandemonium, et cetera.

Circus: I didn’t realize your opinion of the common people was so low.

Tattletale: I’m not saying the common people are idiots, although some of them, who knows. What I’m saying is it’s natural for people to want a leader. It’s nature. It’s Darwin.

Circus: According to whom? From what I’ve seen, people like being treated as equals. I know I haven’t enjoyed being condescended to in this conversation. And Darwin was a eugenicist.

Tattletale sighed. She said, “Look, I’m not going to leave the Undersiders over this. But when the salon revolutionary bullshit inevitably ends in death and tears, I will say that I told you so. And I will enjoy it.”

And, just like that, it was settled.

#

“So, what happens next?” asked Skitter.

“Expropriation,” said Circus.

Now that they were colleagues, Skitter had allowed Circus up into the more private areas — of course, not private for long — of her lair. They spoke in the sort of anteroom that was below Skitter’s bedroom, which was mundane and house-like and wholly incongruous with the black and amber bug costume. Still, Skitter had affected a more casual tone and demeanor than she’d had with Circus in their previous meetings, which was a welcome change, as far as Circus was concerned, because it meant that Skitter was confident, i.e., that she wasn’t having second thoughts about the recent decision. It also meant she felt comfortable acting more human — less posturing, fewer clouds of bugs — and it was therefore becoming more and more pleasant to be in her presence. 

When Circus had chosen this course of action, this mission, they’d looked forward to spending time with Skitter. The bug girl. Before, under the sadistic thumb of Coil, the two had been allies in name only, but whenever they’d met, she’d stood out to Circus like a highlighted piece of text. Something about her (her grim determination? her obvious intelligence?) was endlessly fascinating. 

Their recent reacquaintance could be (mis)construed as fate.

“What is ‘expropriation’?” asked Skitter.

“That reminds me that I should get you some books to read. But, okay, essentially, expropriation just means gathering and pooling together everyone’s property.”

“But are people going to do that willingly?”

“Some of them will, I hope. That’s why you should be the one to do the speech. People here look up to you. Tell them to put all their goods in a refectory, and they’ll do it, because they love you — you saved them.”

“God, I hope you’re not giving me more credit than I deserve.”

“Not at all. Getting rid of the capitalists, as it were, will of course be more difficult. The people who are benefitting from the current system. The landlords, mostly — there aren’t exactly factory-owners in your territory. And you and the other Undersiders are essentially the aristocracy, and that’s already been dealt with, so I’m hoping the transition will be pretty easy, all things considered. The truly hard part will be what comes after.”

“What comes after?”

“Winter. And we’ll have to be prepared.”

“I’ve got people setting up gardens.”

“That’s a good start, although that won’t be able to feed everyone. In the beginning, we’ll probably be able to buy food. But when the money runs out, which will be sooner than you might imagine, things get trickier. As Kropotkin said, a revolution is fought and won with bread.”

“Who?”

“I’ll get you those books.”

They continued discussing possible options for food — fishing? could you raise pigs in the middle of the city? — until at some point Skitter stretched (the length of her limbs was a continual surprise to Circus) and said, “God, I have to sleep and shower and stuff. Thanks for talking about all this with me. I think you and I are very similar, Circus, with the way we, I don’t know, approach things. It’s a shame we didn’t get on the same page with all the Coil stuff.” And she stood up and went up the stairs to her bedroom.

Circus stayed long enough to hear the rush of water start and the hollow thump of feet on ceramic. They wondered what someone like Skitter could possibly look like under the mask.

#

Since their return to Brockton Bay, Circus had been staying in a cockroach-ridden motel a little to the north of Skitter’s territory, which happened to be the poorest part of the city. The infrastructure in the area, what little there’d been, had been utterly obliterated after taking the brunt of Leviathan’s tsunamis. Those who could afford to moved away, but the majority remained in the watery husk of a neighborhood, left to starve, steal, and murder under a sky black with mosquitoes.

Every person Circus saw with a cardboard sign that told a story of injustice, every person with a shopping cart not even half filled with their worldly possessions, every emaciated child was a reminder of the cause. That’s why, despite the resources Circus had, they chose to stay in the Slums.

It wasn’t like Circus wasn’t part of the “people” themselves, however. They’d been that emaciated child before, as painful as it was to think about. It had been all too easy, when they’d received their powers, to act indifferently. To act not just parahuman but  _ super _ human, and therefore not beholden to the plight of those they’d left behind. It had been too easy to act not as a servant to the people — as the powerful ought to — but as a cog in the machine which caused their emaciation in the first place. But that was over now. 

The motel they were in presumably had at one point had a name, but, along with so many lives, the signs which might’ve bore it had been reduced to shrapnel. Circus referred to it as Shit’s Creek in their head because of the sewage-water that crept in through the mildewy floorboards. They thought, with glee, that tonight might be the last they’d have to spend there.

At around midnight, partially to block out the sound of the people next door having (what sounded like) rough, rough sex, and partially because they’d promised they would, Circus called Angel, which wasn’t his real name. 

“ _ Hola _ ?” said Angel.

“It’s Circus.”

“Oh, hey, how’s it going? Thing’s going well with the bug woman?” Angel’s English had the accent of a native Spanish-speaker, but with other, less obvious languages thrown in, too, (German? Russian?) which indicated his worldliness.

“Very well,” said Circus. “Very, very well. Better than we could’ve hoped for. Expropriation begins tomorrow.”

“You move quick.”

“Things okay down there?”

A groan. “Oh, you know, the usual. Vague threats from the US Government and the PRT, Geraldo’s being a pain, another stifled coup. That kind of thing.”

“You know I’ll come back if you tell me to.”

“No no no. Don’t worry — it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before, ha ha. And plus, what you’re doing is important. Vitally important.”

“I know. You keep telling me. I mean, it’s not like I don’t—”

Circus was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Hey, Angel, I’m going to have to call you back,” and they hung up without waiting for a response.

Circus pulled on their mask and took a few throwing knives from the bedside drawer. They stood and crept on their tiptoes to the door, and, standing to the side, threw it open, ready to strike. It was Tattletale. 

“Hey, Circ’.” she said. “Nice place. Can I come in?” And she traipsed in before Circus could answer and sat on the side of the bed. “We should talk.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question. Who were you on the phone with just now?”

“Tattletale, Jesus, I understand paranoia, but can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“You’re sinister, Circ’. Very sinister. Even nefarious. But I can’t put my finger on why I know that to be true.”

“Nefarious?”

“I sensed it was there before Coil died, but I figured it was just your typical villainous flair. But there’s something more, I can tell. I know you’re not telling the full truth about all this anarchy shit.”

“Ah — it’s greed that’s got you paranoid. I understand.”

“Good try, and although I do like money and the goods and services it provides, I could go without it — I certainly have before. What I really dislike, however, is the way you’re whispering in my teammates’ ears like some kind of buffoonish Eva Per ón.”

“Tattletale, I swear to god, my only goal is the prosperity of the poor and disenfranchised.”

“My power says you’re not lying, but, then again, Hitler wouldn’t have been lying if he said the same thing.”

“Really? Hitler?”

“Who were you on the phone with? Where were you in all that time we’d thought you’d disappeared? Because, before, there wasn’t a shred of radical in you, Circus. You were a henchperson through and through.”

“I’ve done a lot of reading since then. Maybe I could recommend a book?”

“Fine, don’t tell me, then. I’ll find out one way or another. But I’m onto you, clown. And if Skitter or Grue or anyone at all winds up hurt because of your phony fucking altruism, I will flay you alive. Or maybe I’ll pay someone to do it for me, just to add insult to injury.”

“Understood.”

And then, as quickly as she’d come, Tattletale was gone, vanished into the insect mist of the Brockton Bay Slums.


	4. Chapter 4

In similar circumstances, a stage might have been warranted, but here, on the eve of revolution, it would’ve defeated the whole purpose, and so Taylor was elevated only by her natural height. In front of her, a mass of people bulged and rustled like something greater than the sum of its parts. The social organism. Circus stood before her, too, arms folded, a splotch of gaudy red among the concrete and dirt.

Taylor took a breath, and then, with strategically placed clusters of bugs acting as speakers, she began to speak:

“Sisters, brothers,” — this immediately silenced the cacophony of voices — “the people who live on this land: I have gathered you here because I have something to tell you. Before that, though, let me tell you some facts I’ve recently come to understand. The first is that the people of this city are suffering.”

Grumbles of assent.

“The second is that, at the same time, a privileged few are doing better than ever, stepping all over you in the process.”

Sporadic “Yeah!”s.

“And the third is that I, Skitter, who has previously laid quote-unquote ‘claim’ to this piece of land, am one of those privileged few. I’ve stepped all over you.”

Silence. 

Taylor wasn’t oblivious to the way her voice changed when speaking to non-capes, especially when it was passed through an arthropodic filter. She was aware, too, that she wasn’t fully herself, fully Taylor, when in costume. And it was unclear whether that change was good or bad. What was clear, however, was that the way people reacted to Taylor was very different than the way they reacted to Skitter. Watching these people cower ( _ cower! _ ) when she said that last line was further evidence of this.

It made her wonder about capes’ capacity as law-enforcement officers. It made her wonder, too, if Circus had been speaking with authority when they spoke about the people’s love for her.

“And, in light of that, here’s what I want to tell you,” she continued, trying her utmost to not sound authoritative. “I want to tell you that I will be stepping down as ‘leader’. Not only that, but there will be no one to replace me. No one will have power over anyone else.

“From now on, no one who lives in this part of the city will have any right to ownership. All the property here belongs to all the people here. Housing will be made available to all who do not have it. Food will be provided, in equal quantity, to everyone. Everyone will be employed, by the people and for the people, working toward the common good.

“The organization of all this will not be done by any kind of government, democratic or otherwise, but by all of us. The engine of labor will no longer be profit, but human solidarity. The only principle anyone here is bound to is the principle of mutual aid. The idea that everyone is entitled to wellbeing, and that is our societal duty to provide it. This is the only path to freedom.”

She paused to catch her breath, and each of her pants was echoed throughout the crowd by the hovering clouds of swarm, amplified by the stunned silence of the onlookers. 

She said, “If you have any further questions, come ask me or one of the Undersiders. You know where to find us. If not, then let’s get to work.” And she turned and walked back toward her lair, although it wasn’t really hers anymore.

#

Taylor, still costumed, sat on the steps leading up to her lair, prepared for a confused citizen to come ask just what the hell was going on. But the first person to visit after her speech wasn’t a confused citizen but Circus, of course, who was bearing a package. 

“This is for you,” said Circus, and they handed over the cardboard box, and their hands touched, just for a moment.

“Thanks,” said Taylor. Inside the box were books ( _ The Conquest of Bread, The Dispossessed _ ). “I’ll definitely read these when I get the chance. Which might not be for a while, I guess. We’ll both probably be pretty busy for the foreseeable future.”

“Yeah, true. Still, I wanted to, you know, show my appreciation. For taking me seriously, I guess. Not many people do.”

“Maybe you should consider a costume change?”

They laughed together, more out of relief than humor.

“Do you think the speech went well?” asked Taylor. “I’m worried I was a little, like, vague.”

“It’s good that you kept things short. It’s more impactful that way. And details aren’t the most important thing at this stage. I’ve already seen people putting soup cans together, so I think it went as well as one can expect.”

“I guess. It just sort of feels like nothing’s really changed.”

“Change, even in situations like this, is slow to manifest. Although, speaking of which, can I, uh, ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Um, well, I was going to ask you if I could, I guess, become your roommate? I haven’t had anywhere nice to stay since I’ve been back, and you’re basically the only person here I know anymore, and I guess now it’s free, ha ha.”

“Oh, uh, sure. This place doesn’t belong to me anymore,” said Taylor, gesturing behind her to the tall, square building. “I haven’t really thought about where everyone will stay. I guess I can keep the top level, and other people can use the lower floors. Or does that send the wrong message?”

“It’ll probably be fine — it’s more convenient that way. I’ll take the floor below yours, then.”

“Fine with me.”

“Cool. Great. Then I guess I’ll see you again tonight. I’d better go help out in the meantime. I promised someone I’d help them distribute food.”

“Right. I’ll come help in a moment.”

And the two separated, Circus back into the fray, and Taylor up to her room — she  _ had _ to stop using possessive pronouns — to shower (for the second time that day — full-body costume plus hundred percent humidity will do that) and to retrieve things which she thought might be useful for building the new commune.

Under the falling water, she focused on the emptiness welling in her chest, which had been growing since the completion of her speech. Like an air bubble pressing against the inside of her ribcage, pulsing with each heartbeat. This was the physiological consequence of losing all one’s property, it seemed. It wasn’t wholly unpleasant. As if she was a balloon being filled with helium, rising now that the sandbags were removed. 

In spite of the airy feeling, she thought of her dad, who was likely home alone at the moment, drinking while the sun was up. It was difficult not to blame herself for his misery. She’d abandoned him, in a sense, and therefore caused him a great deal of anguish in what hindsight had proven to be a pretty selfish move.

He had asked her for money, but she no longer had money in the traditional sense. It wasn’t hers to give away. Did that mean her father, her creator, was now doomed to poverty, eviction, worse? If he was, there would be no one to blame but herself.

The other option, painful to consider but inevitable, was to invite him into the scrappy new anarchist nation, where he could stay rent free, where his skill wouldn’t be rewarded with sorrow. But it hurt to think about. The process would involve a capital-V Vulnerable conversation with him, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared for that. It would also mean living in the same area as him, which potentially meant seeing him every day, which, if asked (by him or anyone else) Taylor would say was something eminently desirable, but, alone, she couldn’t be so confident. She pulled on her hair too hard as she washed it.

Then, while wiping the salty grime from her torso, her thoughts turned to Circus, who she’d gotten so close with in — it couldn’t be, could it? — the past four or five days. They’d taken to each other like kids who meet on the playground and become instantly inseparable. And, more than that, it felt different to past friendships (though was friendship the right word?), natural and organic in a way it hadn’t been with Lisa or Brian or even Emma. And the animus of it all, she could feel, wasn’t mutual admiration or respect or chemistry, but a kind of fierce passion, like elk crossing antlers, like something free of societal constraints. This was the only way she could define it: in a flurry of abstracts.

She tried to come up with more concrete terms to describe the relationship as she pulled back on her spider-silk suit (which needed to be washed soon) and pulled a hammer and a box of nails — the source of which she couldn’t tell you — from a box in her closet. And she was so caught up in speculation and confusion on her way out that she nearly collided with Lisa, who had been lurking outside her room, apparently.

“Taylor,” she said. “We have to talk.” Her eyes, bright behind the domino mask, were bloodshot.

“You startled me.”

“Sorry — it’s urgent.”

“Did you tell the people in your territory the plan?”

“What? No.”

“You were supposed to. You should probably do that now, actually.”

“This can’t wait.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Circus.”

“What about Circus. Are they hurt?”

“No. Look, just listen for a second — there’s a lot of information on the top of my head that I’m afraid is going to disappear pretty soon, so just be quiet. But, well, okay, essentially, the gist of it is that I think Circus is dangerous, or at least they’re not exactly who they say they are.”

“What?”

“Shut up for a minute. I was up all night trying to track down where they were all that time we were too busy with other bullshit to think about them, and I couldn’t find the answer, which should concern the shit out of you, Taylor. I mean, the only thing I could prove is that Circus wasn’t in the US all that time. I don’t know where they were. And, there’s nothing definitive, but I’m fairly certain that, wherever they were, they were working with shady people. There are documents I’ve found linking them to various villain groups and  _ terror cells  _ all across the world. To what extent they were involved, I can’t be certain. But I’m talking dangerous fucking people, Taylor. PRT’s most-wanted types. And, the really cra—”

“Hold on a second. You’re saying Circus is a terrorist?”

“I’m saying there’s a reason to be fucking concerned.”

“About what? What should I be concerned about?”

“Circus. You should stop whatever they told you to do. Don’t listen to them. At least not until I can be certain what their intentions are.”

“You’re not sure.”

“I can’t be a hundred percent certain about anything, but, Taylor, seriously, if my instinct means anything to you, you will cut off all communication, you will reverse whatever changes they’ve put in place, you will—”

“Tattletale, Lisa, wait a minute. I’m not going to do anything until you can tell me, without a reasonable doubt, that Circus wants to hurt us. I can’t take you at your word right now.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“You’re not acting very trustworthy right now. I think, before anything else, you should sleep. And then you should do more research.”

Lisa broke eye-contact, inhaled, tapped her boot against the hardwood floor. “I’m worried a second wasted will be too much,” she said. “In the hours I’m sleeping, catastrophe will strike. I’m sure of it.”

“Catastrophe is going to strike no matter what. All the more reason to be well-rested.”

“Fine, then. If that’s the only way you’ll take me seriously.” And she stormed off in a huff, like a child being sent to their room.

#

Taylor didn’t go out for the rest of the day, despite all the work there was to be done. Something in Lisa’s tone had struck a nerve, enhanced her need to idle.

She lay in the dark, thinking. Brian texted, at one point, saying his and Imp’s announcements had gone over “well” (quotation marks his) and that he wanted to come over, but Taylor had declined, citing an imaginary sickness. 

Lisa’s words tumbled over and over in her mind, and they made her feel naive, gullible — that was the implication, after all. That was a part of herself she’d left behind, or excised when she first put her costume on, or so she thought. Had that “passion” she’d been unable to quantify earlier really made her blind to a terroristic threat?

No amount of rehashing of the events of the past week could resolve the dialectic.

When the sun had disappeared entirely and Taylor was finally beginning to succumb to the temptation of sleep, there was a knock at the door. She stood and opened it. Circus.

“Hey,” said Circus.

“...”


	5. Chapter 5

Their bodies ached and glowed under the sticky heat. Sweat stung Circus’s eyes. The tight, ventilation-free costume was like a sauna, and they could feel fluid sliding down their limbs and torso, and everything itched. But there was dignity in being like this. They were surrounded by people in the same predicament — grimy, pungent, free. Most wore the half-grin of intense concentration.

Circus was helping a group of five — all unfamiliar — cart non-perishables to the new refectory. Even Circus had been surprised by the enthusiasm of the people here. It was as if they’d been waiting for an opportunity like this for ages. After the announcement had been made and after the paralysis of confusion had gone away, the crowd set to work without prompting, taking inventory, setting up new housing arrangements, pooling goods together. 

Of course, the majority is not all, and there were naysayers — quickly dealt with. The protests were silenced almost as soon as they started up, either by diplomacy or intimidation or threat of forcible removal. Conformity is a strong motivator. And with no one to receive orders from, those with the initiative started the work (work that they had yearned for, but which, previously, couldn’t be found in the abandoned city), and then, naturally, the others followed suit. 

Circus’s services were needed soon enough. For security and, when the nature of their powers had been explained, utility. Circus could carry a shed-full of tools and a pantry-full of cans at once in their pocket dimension, and so the number of trips between the residential areas and the newly-designated stockpile, which was in the center of the territory and equidistant from all citizens, was greatly reduced. 

As for security, they’d yet to be confronted by marauders or bandits or anything of the sort, although it was a very real possibility. Word traveled quickly throughout the urban network, and news of a big redistribution of resources was sure to attract outside attention.

Apparently sharing Circus’s concerns, one of their party-members, a tall, scrawny guy with greasy blonde hair pulling a heavy wagon, asked them, “So, uh, do you think it’s possible we’ll get, like, attacked?”

“It’s possible. But unless it’s Alexandria or something, I’ll be able to deal with it.”

“But, like, do you think it could be Alexandria? I’ve never trusted her.”

“Hope not. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Although maybe you could attribute it to the giddy excitement of building a new nation, the camaraderie between Circus and this man, whose name they didn’t even know, was near-instant. The wariness people usually had toward capes was nowhere to be found. The costume meant nothing anymore — they were equals.

“Do you think we’ll need, like, a military or something?” the man asked. “I’ve got this feeling that, like, people aren’t gonna be too happy about all this we’re doing here.”

“No. Definitely not. You want to waste our few resources on a standing army? That’s everything we’re against.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right. You know, my brother died in the war in the eighties, down in Central America. That was when I knew, when he came home in a coffin covered in an American flag, that’s when I knew there was something wrong with this piece of shit country.”

“We’re in a new country now.”

“I guess that's true, huh.”

From the street they were on now, one could see a big section of the Bay and the docks and the southernmost tip of the Boardwalk, all covered by the smog rising from the processing plants. The breeze lifting off the water counteracted the oppressive heat somewhat, and the salty air was certainly more pleasant than the sooty, stale kind closer to Skitter’s old lair. A golden light shone on the white and blue and green waves. It belonged to no one, and to everyone.

The same man said, “Hey, uh, I don’t remember your, like, codename or whatever it is.”

“It’s Circus.”

“Circus. That’s a cool name. I’m Pierce. So you’re, like, Skitter’s teammate?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“That’s so awesome. I remember when she first showed up here, I was just immediately so in love with her.”

“In love?”

“Oh my god, she’s perfect, you ask me. She’s my ideal type of girl.”

“You’re into bugs?”

“Ha ha, no. I mean, I’m fine with bugs, for the most part. It’s just, I like _badass_ girls. And there’s no one more badass than her.”

“I guess so.”

“Hey, so, Circus, you think you could, you know, introduce me to her? Now that we’re, like, equals and all that?”

“Um, I’ll ask her.”

The air seemed to get a few degrees hotter, and the only sound for a while was the crunch of loose asphalt under wagon-wheels. Circus thought of Skitter and how she would hate Pierce. Of course, when the masks were off, Pierce would probably hate her too, or at least like her for different reasons. Skitter wasn’t a badass. That was obvious if you spent enough time with her. Strong, sure, but also fragile, always working to hide a chink in her armor. Which was what made her so fascinating, and what made being around her so fun.

Circus’s thoughts were interrupted by the roaring _zoom_ of an engine behind them, and they pulled a knife from thin air and whipped around. It was a futuristic-looking motorcycle, ridden by a feminine figure whose face was obscured by a bandana and helmet. They (the rider) turned the vehicle off, dismounted, flipped open the kickstand, and removed their helmet, which revealed a face that, even at a distance, Circus had no trouble recognizing — Miss Militia.

MM, in green and brown camouflage (whose purpose was defeated somewhat by the high-contrast American flag bandana), warped her green energy into a handgun and pointed it at Circus, who dropped their knife with a clang and brought their hands above their head. Pierce and the others did the same.

In a voice you could tell was used to giving orders, Miss Militia said, “Haven’t seen you in a while, Circus.”

“People keep saying that,” said Circus. “I wasn’t gone for that long.”

“What’s in the wagons?”

“Dynamite.”

The flick of a safety switch.

“I’m joking!” said Circus. “Damn, Em-Em, relax. It’s just food, see?”

“And your pocket dimension?”

Circus opened their hiding place and let the cans and bottles and shovels topple to the street. “There. Let’s all just take a second. No violence is necessary here. I promise.”

The handgun disappeared. Miss Militia began to approach, and Pierce and the unpowered party-members bristled, Circus could feel, and so Circus turned and told them to stay calm.

“What’s the problem?” asked Circus. “What did I do this time?”

“We, by which I mean the PRT, have heard worrying things about the situation around here.”

“Uh, well, don’t know what to tell you. Nothing villainous going on here. In fact, I’d say the opposite is true.”

Miss Militia’s eyes narrowed. “You and I both know, Circus, that our history is too long and sordid for me to believe a statement like that. Something’s going on — this comes from high, _high_ up.”

“What have I always told you, Em-Em? Always question authority. I mean, surely this warlord-controlled part of your territory should’ve already been high priority. Why would my presence change anything?”

“Intel, which is good enough to have been deemed actionable, tells us there’s a legitimate threat to national security here, and since it seems to have something to do with your arrival, well, I know you, Circus — I thought it was worth following up on.”

“Now you’re really starting to sound like a spook. National security? Actionable intel? All we’re trying to do is help the people here out of poverty. Something your government failed to do.”

Circus heard someone spit. 

“ _My_ government? Isn’t it yours as well?”

“About that — things _have_ changed since my return. The Undersiders and I and all the people here are no longer part of the American Empire. We’ve declared independence. That should be something you know all about, you proud patriot.”

“As far as I know, the founding fathers weren’t costumed supervillains.”

“Uh, you might want to check again.”

“And anyway, I’m not here to get into arguments over sovereignty. All I know is, my boss told me there was unrest in this part of the city, and that it was imperative I come here and, well, squash it.”

“Sounds like something someone with an American flag around their neck would say. There’s no unrest. You’ve seen for yourself. Go back and tell your boss before you cause an international incident.”

“Yeah, you fucking pig,” said Pierce from behind Circus, and what happened next could only be put into logical order after the fact: MM said, “Step back!” and morphed her emerald gas into an assault rifle and aimed at Pierce, who in fact did not step back but forward, and who was therefore shot in the leg — they discovered later the bullet landed only a few inches from his femoral artery — and Miss Militia shouted, “Fuck!” and hopped back on the futuristic motorcycle and drove back the way she had come, and Pierce collapsed and almost immediately passed out. 

Once the shock subsided, Circus snapped into action. They removed the cans from one of the wagons and hauled pierce up and into it. 

“Shit,” said one of the other group-members.

“What the fuck do we do?” said another.

But Circus didn’t take the time to deliberate with them, and instead began pulling the very, very heavy wagon back to “base camp” (the area around where Skitter had given her speech), where there would (hopefully) be someone to help. 

On arrival, a blonde woman said she’d worked as a nurse before, and that, according to her, Pierce should be taken to a hospital as soon as possible. But, since there were of course no hospitals within the Undersiders’ territory, Circus told her this was out of the question, and, after a brief argument, they persuaded her to look after Pierce herself. They went to the cleanest building they knew of (which really wasn’t very clean) and Circus watched the nurse remove the bullet and dress the wound.

When she was finished, the nurse assured Circus that Pierce wasn’t going to die unless there was an infection (which, in a place like this, was entirely possible) and that he would probably recover in the next couple weeks, although she couldn’t speak to whether there would be lasting damage to the leg. 

#

By the time Circus left Pierce’s bedside, the sun was down and clouds of moths were frenziedly attacking the undersides of streetlamps. They felt hollow, used up. They’d seen people shot before, and worse, but this was the first time it had been their fault. Of course, rationally, Circus knew the blame really belonged to that bitch Miss Militia, who had always been a source of great distress. But rationality couldn’t do much in the face violence.

Wasn’t police brutality supposed to _precede_ revolution?

The question of response would have to wait — Circus was incapable of thinking any more.

Before the relief of sleep, though, there was one last responsibility. Circus reasoned that she needed to know, and so, after trekking down the block and up the winding stairs, they knocked on the door to Skitter’s bedroom, which opened. 

“Hey,” said Circus. 

“...”

“Sorry — didn’t mean to wake you up. It’s just, some crazy shit happened while you were… where were you?”

“Circus?”

“Yeah?”

“Before we talk about anything else, you need to tell me where you were during your, um, hiatus.”

“What? Shit — did Tattletale tell you something?”

“She did. She told me all sorts of things, Circus. That you weren’t in the country. That you might be a terrorist. Is any of that true?”

“I think we need to have an honest discussion about Tattletale. I’m not sure our new nation can survive her presence.”

“Just fucking answer.”

Circus sighed. “No.”

“You mean you won’t answer?”

“I mean no, I wasn’t in the country.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Referenced rape, imperialism, minor retconning.

“Where were you?” asked Taylor after a moment’s pause, which was (the pause was) pregnant with anxiety and regret, the feeling that, somewhere along the road, she’d made a massive mistake.

Circus paused before answering as well, put their hand to their face, sighed. “I was in Nicaragua.”

“And why were you in Nicaragua?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Oh? Is it?”

“Well, yeah, Skitter. I don’t see why it’s so important.”

“What were you doing in Nicaragua?”

“Do you know anything about Nicaragua? Could you even point to it on a map?”

“Probably not, honestly. So what were you doing there?” Taylor felt the static of bugs all around her, eager, begging, closing in on all sides like a living coffin. The costume squeezed her ribs. She couldn’t breathe. 

“I wasn’t — what did you say I was? — a terrorist.”

“Then what were you?”

“I was — look, it’s not easy to explain. And it’s really not relevant.”

“Humor me.”

“ _ Operador paramilitar _ , is what they called me.”

“They?”

“Okay, hold on. This would all be so much easier if you knew some basic fucking history.”

“I had other concerns in high school.”

“Just, ugh, just sit down — let me educate you.”

Taylor sat on the side of her bed and watched Circus pace back and forth. The benefit of the doubt: was it deserved or not? All this could be some elaborate cover story, and yet, the disheveled clown, panicked and manic, whizzing back and forth before her, seemed so human, so below the pageantry and theater and bullshit, and it was therefore difficult to treat these words with the grain of salt they probably deserved. But the panic was still there in her chest, and, like the bugs, kept threatening to burst onto the scene. Its exact source was a mystery.

“Okay,” said Circus, “here it is:”

**Circus’s Highly Abridged History of Post-Scion Nicaragua**

The first American parahuman (whose name is unknown to this day) was, of course, immediately conscripted into the US military. You have to remember, although it’s largely forgotten these days, that when Scion first showed up the world was, like, pretty close to total annihilation. The Cold War (which never officially ended and was only forgotten in the face of a larger[?] threat) was at that point at its height. In fact, the first sighting of Scion was initially interpreted by the US as a Soviet attack, and the world almost didn’t have to grapple with the implications of its new golden god if you see what I’m getting at.

But anyway, yes, the first American parahuman got swept up in the Cold War paranoia — they were, after all, a potential weapon against the “evils” of Communism. Perhaps you learned this, Skitter, in a parahuman history class, but Reagan, immediately after the new phenomenon of parahumanity was confirmed, issued a statement on live TV about the possibility that it was an elaborate Soviet scheme, and that the US military was looking into potential responses. This was, like most of what Reagan said, total bullshit. The military had already begun trying to weaponize parahumans for their own (morally dubious) purposes. In other words, the moment parahumans were discovered they were shipped off to fight (covertly) in proxy wars all over the world.

Now, how does this apply to Nicaragua? you might be asking. Well, see, a few years before Scion showed up, Nicaragua had elected a leftist government, the FSLN, a.k.a. The Sandinistas. Naturally, that goblin Reagan wasted no time in declaring this new government a threat to the US’s national security — and just like that, Nicaragua became the newest front in the Cold War. 

With blood-money generated from selling weapons and drugs, the US funded the Sandinistas’ opponents, the Contras. And not only did they send funds and guns, they sent the new superheroes, who were dressed not in gaudy costumes but US military fatigues. 

Reagan loved the Contras, said they were “the moral equivalent of the founding fathers,” which should tell you everything you need to know. What I’m saying is: the Contras and their CIA/proto-Protectorate allies were some evil motherfuckers. They kidnapped and murdered and raped innocent people. Any war crime you can think of (and way more), the anti-Sandinista coalition perpetrated it on a massive, massive scale. 

At this point, you might be saying, jeez, Circus, that’s pretty awful, but it’s also about what I’ve come to expect from the US military; why is this case so special? Well, Skitter, I’ll tell you: the Nicaraguan people were experiencing some extreme oppression, and what happens when people are subjected to extremes? Powers happen. And, let me tell you, the Sandinistas won the power jackpot. Highly rated, offensively powerful capes were created in the sweltering equatorial heat, springing up among the death and destruction like mushrooms blooming from a rotting corpse. And these capes were, as one might expect, not very friendly to the American invaders.

Slowly, and then all at once, the tide of the war shifted. The Contras and their allies were beaten and eventually executed or forced into exile. This is why you weren’t aware of all this — the US wasn’t keen on sharing the fact they’d lost another battle with Communism in the Global South. And plus, the general population was at this time more concerned with Brutes and Blasters than with bombs and Bolsheviks. 

But on the other side, the Russians and Cubans et al. saw the victory in Nicaragua as a signal that these new supernatural gifts were an important new weapon and that, although they were losing the traditional Arms Race, they were suddenly ahead in a brand new one. And, as Cuba had been decades earlier, Nicaragua became the Soviets’ base in the Western Hemisphere. Nuclear holocaust was no longer the means by which Mutually Assured Destruction would happen — parahumans were.

And who knows what would’ve happened if the Endbringers hadn’t popped up. But they did. Behemoth raised his rocky head from the ground and all of a sudden war between nations seemed so petty. There was still a wall separating East and West Berlin, but, when Behemoth was raining fire on Cologne, Soviet capes flew right over it, and no one cared (although, as a side note, the same could not be said of American capes when Moscow was under attack).

But even as tensions subsided, Nicaragua remained the locus of parahuman-power for the left-leaning world, and to this day (even though their politics have changed a bit, e.g., they’ve become less authoritarian) will accept capes of any nationality into their military, so long as they share the common goal of defeating the slimy octopus of capitalism by any means necessary. 

And so, after my employment with Coil fell through, I thought that would be a cool thing to go and do.

#

Taylor’s room was pitch black by now, and as her eyes adjusted, Circus’s red costume became blue and gray, and their usually brownish eyes became pale and oversatured.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Taylor muttered. Then, louder, “I have a couple, uh, questions, Circus.”

Circus, who by this point looked utterly defeated, sat next to her on her bed, sinking down into the mattress like they were the densest thing on the planet. “Shoot.”

“So what you’re saying is you’re some kind of Manchurian Candidate? That you’re working as, like, an agent provocateur for the Soviet government?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say it in those words, but, yes, I am technically working for the Soviet government. When news about the Undersiders’ control of the city got to them, they wanted to send a missionary, as it were, to try and convert you and thereby get a foothold within the American empire. And since I was the only one who had any kind of tie to you, they sent me.”

“Shit.”

“Look, Skitter, I never lied — I’m trying to do what’s right. And this shouldn’t change your mind. I mean, if you’d seen the looks in the people here’s eyes today… They have hope for the first time in years, Skitter.”

“So Tattletale wasn’t lying when she said you were working with terrorists?”

“Some of the people I work with are probably designated as terrorists in PRT records, yes.”

“And also, isn’t the USSR, you know, Communist? Not anarchist?”

“Well, that was my own Kropotkinite flair. Really, Skitter, I’m so, so sorry for lying to you. But you see now why I had to, right?”

“Fuck me. Fuck fuck fuck.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”

“No,” said Taylor. “Stay.” She said this without forethought — it simply came out of her — but, in the silence that followed, she realized she meant it. Because, for her, Circus represented hope. They represented an escape from the cynical, endless cycle of increasingly elaborate methods of control, of power, of ownership, which would always have ended in a lonely death, she now saw.

It was easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, as in she literally knew the date of the apocalypse. But Circus had offered her reprieve, both personal and political, from that Sword of Damocles. She knew that if they left, Taylor would be returned to that awful reality, whose purpose was the worship of consumption, and, ultimately, the worship of death, and she would drag everyone — Lisa, Brian, Rachel, her father — back down with her.

“Stay,” she repeated. “Tell me what we do now.”

“Um, are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ve never felt any particular love for this country. You’re right, this is the right thing to do. I don’t care who’s, like, financing it.”

“I’m, uh, glad you think that.”

“So, what’s next?” Taylor stood and switched the light on. She took her mask off. Circus turned to look at her, then whipped back around when they saw her, and said, “Shit, sorry — I didn’t see anything.”  
“It’s okay, you can look. You’ve revealed _your_ true identity, so it’s only fair I show you mine, right?”

Taylor stood across from Circus, and she saw them swallow as they analyzed her face, which undoubtedly was too pale and blemished at the moment to really be worth looking at. She took her glasses from the bedside table and put them on. “How do I look?”

“Um, not how I thought you would,” said Circus. “Do you want me to take my mask off, too?” But they already were in the process of undoing the straps. Their face was pudgy and androgynous and heavily made up, which (unlike Taylor’s, apparently) seemed to fit their personality.

“I’m Taylor.”

“I don’t really have a non-cape name — you can just call me Circus.” 

“So, what was that ‘crazy shit’ you were alluding to earlier?”

Circus told her about Pierce and Miss Militia, and about the potential implications of the fiasco (namely that the PRT had at least some clue as to what Circus’s true allegiances were). They discussed potential responses, although they were too exhausted to take it very seriously. 

Taylor experienced that airy feeling again, which was now stronger than ever, pushing the day’s earlier panic out of her chest. It meant freedom. She remembered now — it was there when she first went out in costume, when she met the Undersiders, when she left her dad’s house. And here was another new beginning, now free of the weight of secrets, held up not by insecurity or desperation but solidarity, shared pain, shared struggle. 

At around midnight, Circus said, “I’m about to pass out, Taylor. Is it still okay if I sleep on the floor below this one?”

“You don’t have to ask my permission.”

“Right. Well, in that case, good night.” And they stood.

Taylor stood as well and, before they had a chance to escape, she brought Circus into a hug, which was the first time she’d initiated physical contact with someone in recent memory. Circus hugged her back, then withdrew, looking at the ground, and they said, “You know, Taylor, I’m glad you showed me your face — you have a nice face.” And Circus left before Taylor had a chance to thank them.

To the air, Taylor said, “You too.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this fic ever dies it'll be because I'm in prison for draft-dodging. Death to America.

Under the darkness, which, in the space below Skitter’s — _Taylor’s_ — room, was total and oppressive, Circus thought of need. What deserved to be on that list of human necessity? Food and shelter, sure, but what about companionship? Sex? Those gray areas, the source of so much anguish, could be difficult to fit into that equation of “To each according to their need,” and Circus, for whom these ambiguous questions provoked a lot of anxiety, avoided thinking about the subject as much as feasibly possible.

But something in Taylor’s maskless expression had caused that train of thought to start up for the first time in who knows how long, and now Circus couldn’t sleep. Comfort, love, desire — all pinging around within the dark confines of their skull. There was a knot in their chest. Something in Taylor’s moonlike face, something in her rigid posture, something in her confidence and honesty and intelligence, was causing Circus a great deal of confusion. And of course the insomnia wasn’t helping.

Circus found themselves thinking about the first (and only, depending on how you counted things) time they had had sex. At a party when they had still been in highschool, where there had been maybe too much alcohol, with this tall, pale guy who didn’t go to their school and who Circus never learned the name of. They remembered afterwards feeling so nervous and nauseous and uncomfortable that they spent the next twenty-four hours vomiting up the lining of their stomach. Perhaps you could attribute that to Circus’s complicated relationship with “gender” and their therefore complicated relationship with their body, but whatever the reason, the result was a purposeful subduing of their sexuality, which was a whole other source of complexity.

And so was that the source of their present confusion? The reawakening of a long-dormant creature brought on by someone showing them the slightest amount of personal attention? It struck Circus as maybe a little pathetic.

On the other hand, though, if this was an accurate assessment of things, and they really were feeling some kind of “attraction,” was it something they _needed_? Asking this made the space around them feel very, very cold. It made them imagine a person who had been starving so long they’d forgotten what it felt like to be sated, and it made them imagine the effect of showing that person a picture of a meal. 

#

The sleep Circus managed to get was interrupted by Grue, who, upon seeing the unfamiliar shape in Taylor’s lair, excreted a big plume of inky blackness the way a squid might when threatened. 

“Sorry,” he said when Circus jumped up with a knife in their hand. “Didn’t, uh, expect to see you here.”

“No private property, right? I can sleep wherever I want.” The few hours of sleep had done nothing to loosen the knot in Circus’s chest.

“Uh, right. Is she here?”

“Probably.”

“Cool.” And he went up the stairs.

Circus put away the knife, and stretched, and felt their back crack and spasm (which was something you got used to when you’ve spent as much time without a mattress as Circus has) and they shuffled down and out onto the sidewalk. The first new day in this brand new world. Food, of course, was the first priority. If no one had taken it upon themselves to set up the infrastructure for distributing food, that would have to be dealt with immediately — nothing kills a revolution faster than hunger.

And, while walking through the damp streets, their nose caught wind of a big, wafting scent, which was floating through the air like a spirit, the scent of bacon and butter and eggs and heat, and Circus’s stomach grumbled ferociously. Discovering the scent’s source was no trouble — a block down they found a line of people that seemed to stretch for miles. The man at the end of the queue, who mostly seemed occupied with keeping two toddlers on either side of him from attacking each other, told Circus that someone was giving out food, apparently, from the previously abandoned storefront a couple blocks(!) ahead. 

Circus grinned inwardly and took their spot behind the man. The early-morning hunger lessened somewhat at the knowledge it would soon be relieved. These people knew how to live their lives, and any supervision or outside direction would only serve to slow down the process. 

The line moved pretty quickly, all things considered, and soon a large, round, bearded man in an apron was scooping scrambled eggs and bacon so crisp it was nearly black onto Circus’s paper plate. 

They asked the man, “Were you the one who set all this up?”

“Yep,” said the man in a gruff voice, and he directed Circus back behind the counter so that they could talk without holding up the operation.

While Circus ate in big mouthfuls, the man said, “I used to be a cook, and no one else was doing it, and I figured it needed doing, so…” He served a pregnant woman who asked for an extra serving, which he granted.

“That’s great. This is great.”

“Well, thanks,” he said. “It’s no skin off my back. I love making food. I mean, I haven’t done it in awhile. I used to do it a lot. I went to culinary school and everything, and I got a job at this really fancy restaurant, but it just took all the joy out of it, working there. I would spend so much time just being obsessed over every detail, making every dish perfectly, but my boss, this big red-faced guy, he would never be happy. I couldn’t take it anymore, after a certain point.”

“That’s awful,” said Circus.

“Yeah. It’s Isaac, by the way.” And he offered his free hand to shake, which they did.

“Circus.”

“You were the one who convinced Skitter to do all this, right? I saw you next to her when she made that speech.”

“Sort of — I mean, it was her choice, ultimately.”

“I gotta say, I’ve felt better today, doing this, than I have in a long time. It reminds me of this trip I went on to Israel a while back. It was right after I quit that restaurant job, actually, and I was feeling just so lost, I remember. And I’m Jewish, at least ethnically, and I’ve always wanted to do it, so I took a flight and stayed on a _kibbutz_ for a couple months. And that’s what this reminds me of: that little dusty village. There’s no, I don’t know, anxiety. I know everyone has my back, you know what I mean?”

Circus took all this in, digested it along with their breakfast.

“What do you need?” they said. “I mean, to keep doing this?”

“Uh, well, the supply is pretty finite. If we eat like this every day, we won’t last very long. We need some kind of reliable source of food.”

“Any suggestions?”

“I don’t know. There’s a lot of fishing that goes on around here, I’ve seen. Maybe there’s some way we could take advantage of that.

“I can take care of it,” said Circus.

They finished their meal, thanked Isaac again, and left the little building. Outside, people had set up plastic tables and metal chairs along the sidewalk and were eating and chatting and sweating under the rising sun. They were red and glowing and smiling. Circus smiled back.

They trekked through the city blocks under a smoggy cloud that seemed to emanate from everywhere all at once. At one point, they passed a weary looking woman reading a book to a group of kids, who were giggling and jostling one another. Eventually they reached the boardwalk area, from which you could see the port with its tall stacks of shipping containers and cranes that looked like big insects, swinging around in the breeze. And farther ahead were short and wide gray buildings that shot spirals of ash into the atmosphere from stubby little smokestacks.

Circus performed a feat of acrobatics that wasn’t humanly possible, climbing up the side of a crumbling square building nearby with apparently no regard for gravity, and eventually landed feet first on the roof, which was rotting and crumbling and would fall through with one false step, which of course Circus was incapable of making. From this vantage point, they could see out across the sweeping blue-green expanse of Brockton’s Bay. Boats made small by perspective dotted the water like tiny brushstrokes. How close the people on those boats were to freedom, at least geographically. Instead, they were stuck toiling among the heat and mosquitoes for not even enough to feed themselves, just for the luxury of starving slower, allotted to them by someone far away, who was sleeping comfortably in an impractically large bed.

And on the shore, little ant-sized people scurrying in and out of those smoking buildings, stooped and sluggish. Circus squinted to see if they could make out exactly what these people were doing. They were carrying around boxes and baskets of … fish. By watching a little longer they got a good understanding of the process: the workers would take the fish from a big pile of close to the big wooden pier and bring them inside the building where they would be cleaned and processed, and then they would put the product into a series of trucks that were on the other side of the building.

That was an idea.

#

Circus found Skitter/Taylor sitting outside the building where they’d both slept the previous night, in costume, speaking with Grue. The two were standing very close to one another. 

“You know, you two” said Circus, coming up to them, “there’s probably some, like, work you could be doing.”

“We are working,” said Grue. “Guarding and stuff.”

“Yeah, guarding,” said Skitter. “Where have you been, Circus? I couldn’t find you this morning.”

Circus was finding it a little difficult to breathe. They were hyper-focused on Taylor/Skitter: each of her movements, the way she stood, the tone of her voice, the subtle maneuvers of the gnats and flies buzzing all around them. And also the pieces were coming together with regards to the fact that these two were “together” in some capacity, which meant many things, so many things it made Circus’s head hurt.

“I was, um, exploring,” they said. “And I think I have an idea about how to get a steady source of food, which we definitely need.” And they told them about the processing plant. “If we can seize it and convince some of the workers and fishermen to keep working there and delivering fish, we’ll be able to feed everybody no problem, and we can probably sell the surplus to outside distribution centers for some extra income.”

“Interesting,” said Taylor. “Does the plant have any security or anything?”

“Not as far as I can tell. Maybe at night it will, I couldn’t say.”

“I don’t know,” said Grue. “That sounds like it’d be very, uh, provocative. Do we really want to attract so much outside attention so early on?”

“The government already knows about us,” said Circus. “Did, uh, did Skitter tell you about Miss Militia?”

“The gist of it, yeah,” said Grue.

“I think it’s fair to say we’ve already been pretty fairly provocative,” said Circus. “And we’re going to get outside attention no matter what, so we probably want to prioritize making sure we all don’t starve in the meantime. I think we should do this as soon as possible.”

“What do we need?” asked Skitter.

“We could ask Tattletale about the security situation,” said Grue. “And if there’s nothing serious on that front, we could probably take it ourselves. It’d have to be at night, of course.”

“Tattletale….” said Taylor.

“What, is there a problem with her?”

“It’s complicated,” said Skitter. “Maybe you should be the one to ask her about it, Grue.”

“Um, okay. Should I be worried?”

“It’s fine,” said Circus. “Maybe you should go ask her now.”

“Uh, sure,” said Grue, and he went jogging off down the street.

Circus turned to Skitter/Taylor and said, “So you two are dating, huh?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's alive!

“I guess we’re dating,” said Taylor. “For lack of a better word.”

“Okay,” said Circus.

“Is that a problem?”

They were between the tall brownstones which sloped gradually down toward the Bay. Sweat on their skin. 

“It’s not a problem,” said Circus.

“Your tone right now is making me think it might be a problem, though.”

“As long as it doesn’t interfere with any of our goals.”

“Why would it?”

“I don’t know. Are you happy with him?”

“Um, I think that’s not any of your business.”

“You’re right.”

“And I am happy with him, as a matter of fact.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

“You don’t sound glad, Circus, to be a hundred percent honest.”

“The factory’s right here — this way.”

The shining surface of the Bay was in view now, along with the grungy grays of the factory buildings. The sun was on its way out. This hostile takeover would need to happen soon if it was going to happen at all. Gulls squawked merrily overhead.

“I don’t see anyone going in or out,” said Circus, who had taken a vantage point on the post of a pier. “We can probably break in as soon as it gets dark.”

“Then what?” asked Taylor.

“Hold it hostage.”

“You’re sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s the only idea.”

“I’m worried we’ll all die. I’m worried this interference with the city’s revenue will be the final straw and the full force of the Protectorate will descend upon us and we’ll all die and the world will end.”

“Anything’s possible. Isn’t it worth a shot, though?”

#

After an hour of idling (Circus with their juggling balls and Taylor drawing in the sky with her bugs) the sun had gone entirely and moonlight danced across the rippling surface of the Bay. They had watched as the stooped and weary employees shuffled out of the concrete building and away, home for an hour of free time at most, and the sight was motivation enough.

Taylor had yet to receive any kind of call from Grue or Tattletale, and she began to worry. Lisa was sowing dissent, she was sure. She hadn’t told Brian about Circus’s past because doing so would also involve telling him about how they had shown each other their faces, how they had spent the evening together, alone. And it had all happened so fast, and now Lisa was turning Brian against her as they stood and waited for the world to move around them. There was a war on two fronts.

“Circus? I’m beginning to think we shouldn’t wait for the others.”

“Does Tattletale still not trust me?”

“Tattletale doesn’t trust anyone. Don’t take it personally.”

“Would she, you know, try and get Grue to switch sides or something.”  
“I can’t worry about that right now.”

“So we should just try and do this by ourselves?”

“We do make a good team.”

#

They jogged through the night, up and over the barbed-wire fence with the aid of an insect carpet. Circus leapt and grabbed the folding fire-escape and brought it down, and they both clambered up to the flat grey roof. Taylor peered through the skylight. Two security guards. The sight of them disgusted her. She showed Circus, who pulled a crowbar from thin air, counted one two three, and then smashed through the panes and tumbled into the dark factory.

Taylor followed the action with her bugs. Circus jumped on the fat, balding guard and brought the crowbar to his head. Taylor highlighted the other one with a brigade of fireflies and within instants he was down as well. Circus flipped a switch and the sliding door ratcheted open and Taylor circled around and entered at ground level.

“You’re sure there were no alarms?” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

“So what now? We wait until the workers show up in the morning?”

“Yes. And deal with any potential trespassers, agents of the State, et cetera. It’s possible we’re being tracked, you know.”

“What if the workers, you know, don’t like what we’re offering?”

“If they don’t want free room and board and food, you mean? I doubt it. In this economy?”

“Or what if Miss Militia shows back up?”

“You’re worried today. I wouldn’t worry about double-em. She’s a pushover, believe me. I know all her tricks.”

“It’s only, what? Midnight?”

“Get comfortable.”

Taylor sighed and took off her mask and wiped the sweat from under her eyes. Circus leaned against a wall. Taylor was worried — who wouldn’t be, in a situation such as hers? Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if revolution were the only thing on her mind, if Circus could have remained a merely political entity and not a human being with their own secret, forbidden desires. Perhaps she was reading too much into it.

That night, the night she showed Circus her face, the night she hugged them, she’d been acting with reckless abandon. Brian, their past together, had been but a distant memory — that night she could only focus on the future.  _ You have a nice face _ . She snuck a furtive glance at Circus. The moon crept across the navy sky overhead. 

Brian was  _ her  _ boyfriend, and she was  _ his  _ girlfriend. Wasn’t it strange, she thought, how possession was built into the English language? Before she was born, when her mother and father had been married, they had asked the State for permission. And in her most naive and girlish imaginings, Taylor had pictured she and Brian doing the same. Do you take this woman to be  _ your  _ wife? a priest might say. A priest whose authority was derived from that of an ultimate, divine leader. 

Or, worse, they would do it in a courthouse, some blocky monument built to honor the system of supremacy and domination that kept them in check, in subjugation to the brutal, violent power of the great US of A.

Whatever relationship there was between Taylor and Circus, on the other hand, didn’t fit into that totalitarian mould. She walked over to Circus and slid down beside them. They smelled of sweat and sea and fish. Taylor likely did as well. It didn’t bother her the way it might have bothered her in the past. Now she was free. In fact “free” didn’t feel like a big enough word for what she was feeling. No, what she was feeling didn’t fit into the oppressive vocabulary of English, which was the language of colonizers and of slavemasters. 

“Circus?” she said.

“Yes?” said Circus. They looked into each other’s maskless faces. Maybe a centimeter between them. 

“When you were asking about Grue and I earlier — and correct me if I’m wrong — but I couldn’t help but think you sounded … jealous.”

Circus bit the inside of their cheek. For a few seconds the only sound was the thrum of the machinery and her own heartbeat. Then Circus kissed her. 

The kiss went on for much too long. After the shock, a part of her mind kept going:  _ I’m his. I’m only his _ . But another, newer part answered back:  _ I am my own or I am no one’s _ . Circus’s mouth tasted like bacon. 

When they finally broke apart Circus said, “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Taylor said, “Mm.” And she stood and set to work tying the piggish guards to the pillars holding up the roof. She didn’t say anything until the sun was up, and neither did Circus.

#

The first person who showed up to the plant wasn’t a trespasser but a man in a blue uniform who entered through the sliding door and took a rubber yellow apron from a hook and pulled it over his head. Then he turned and saw the two red and bloated guards with duct tape across their mouths, and he screamed. 

Circus stepped forward and held their hands up to indicate they were no threat and said, “Hey — you work here?”

The man nodded. His mouth was open.

“I have a proposition for you. How’d you like to work for us?”

“Hey, look, guy,” said the man, “I don’t mean no offense or anything but I’m not exactly cut out to do the whole cape thing.”

“No no no, I don’t mean be a henchman or something, just keep doing this gig, and instead of getting paid jack shit by Cannon Fish Company we pay you in housing and food and benefits. Not to mention fewer hours.”

Circus explained the situation they’d set up in the Undersiders’s former territory, and eventually, after some haggling, the man, whose name was Chet and who was single and had been living in the Slums, agreed and shook Circus’s hand. Taylor lurked in shadows for this exchange — her appearance was liable to do more harm than good in this instance.

The other employees trickled in one by one, sometimes with lunch pails in their hand, and Circus and Chet convinced them all. Some were easier than others. A few were ecstatic (“I won’t even need my other job now!”) but a few were at first reluctant, citing their families’ relative safety in the city proper among other concerns. But they all came around in the end. What they were offering was many lightyears ahead of what the “competition” was. 

After the line-workers, the factory manager showed up. A tall broad man in a blue dress shirt. Circus explained to him that, look, if he wasn’t willing to help out with the actual, you know, work, he was going to have to get lost. The other employees glared at him. He scurried away.

Taylor was going to ask Circus if they were worried that the manager might go straight to the cops, but doing so would involve speaking to Circus, which she wasn’t quite up for.

Brian called.

“Skitter?” he said. The hollow quality of his voice exacerbated by the poor reception. “What’s going on?”

“Grue — hey. Turns out there were only two non-powered guards, so we didn’t need your help anyway. Thanks for that, by the way.” Taylor’s mouth was dry. She was freezing despite the noon sun.

“Skitter, Tattletale told me what she told you. You know, about Circus. If that is their real name.”

Hearing Brian say that name made her wince. “Look, it’s more complicated than what she knows. It’s all happening so fast, I haven’t had time to tell you. Circus told me about it. It’s fine, everything’s fine. The factory is up and running. We’ll have some fried fish tonight.”

“Listen, I believe you. Tattletale I’m not so sure about. She looked, um, unwell. She took five Excedrin during our conversation alone. I think you should go talk to her.”

“Fine. I can do that. Will you come take my place here?”

“I’ll be right over. And, Skitter?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“You, too,” squeaked Taylor, and she hung up before Brian could speak another word. 

She walked over to Circus who was explaining to Chet how to set up a worker’s council — “That’s what  _ soviet _ really means, you know.” — and said, “Hey, um, apparently I have to go talk to Tattletale. Should I tell her, you know, what you told me?” She couldn’t look them in the eye.

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Circus. “Unless you think she’d snitch to the Federal Government or something.”

“I don’t think she’s the type.”

They stood in front of one another, staring at their shoes. The air was ripe with the stench of gutted bass. 

“Taylor, look….”

“Let’s not talk about it right now.”

And she dashed out the back door before Circus could object. She hadn’t felt fear like this since Coil was alive. She had never been closer to the strangers around her, and yet she felt as though her friends were the furthest away they had been since their first meeting, and on top of this she could feel the fist of the Status Quo winding up for a sucker punch.

Then before she could start on her journey to Lisa’s place, a gunshot pierced through the noises of production.


	9. Interlude One: Selected Articles

**Is the Protectorate Obsolete?**

_By Carrie Gurlengurger_

Last week as I’m sure you are aware one Miss Militia shot and critically wounded an unarmed Pierce DuPont in the newly formed Brockton Bay Autonomous Zone. By now, of course, this is hardly surprising. Extrajudicial violence is what we’ve come to expect from those highly powered enforcers of the law. It is — or, rather, we are told it is — merely a fact of our post-Scion world. Superpowered cops are needed to Protect us from the superpowered villains lurking just beyond the edges of our collective vision. 

But if that is the goal of the so-called Protectorate, then anyone with the slightest understanding of their true function will see clearly that they have failed. Indeed, in a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center, only thirty-percent of all arrests conducted by Protectorate actors are of parahumans. The vast majority are mere petty criminals, mostly poor, mostly people of color, who had the bad luck of committing their “crimes” within the jurisdiction of a demigod. 

And this is not the only way the advent of parahumans has influenced the field of criminal justice. Figures such as Dragon or Armsmaster have made massive strides in the field of police technology: cameras that can track you throughout an entire city, various “non-lethal” weapons (google the long-term effects of “containment foam” to learn more), and the light-weight ultra-fast armored vehicles anyone with a badge has access to — just to name a few.

And on the other side of the criminal justice system as well. Are we supposed to believe the establishment of the Protectorate and with it institutions like the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center — colloquially known as the “Birdcage” — aligned with the goals of the Reagan Administration by mere coincidence? Much has already been written about the mass incarceration brought about by the Reagan Administration’s policies: that it was racist, that it was a means of taking advantage of the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment to create a kind of neo-slavery. And yet liberal pundits who agree with these criticisms defend the institution of the Protectorate and all the overhauls to the legal system its establishment entailed. These pundits are blind to the fact that Reagan and his cronies used the post-Scion panic to build the infrastructure for the deeply inhumane prison system in this country, and that to do away with one would be to do away with the other.

Viewed through this lens, it is easier how the Protectorate and its policing model spread so quickly throughout the US and then the world. There are currently thirty fully-operational Protectorate buildings in this country, and there are plans to construct twenty-five more by 2020. In addition to the hundreds of the “normal” prisons constructed since the eighties, there have been fifty prisons designed specifically to contain parahumans apprehended by agents of the Protectorate. How? How in this country with crumbling bridges and potholed streets was such a massive infrastructural project completed? It was marketed as a means to keep the eternal wheel of capital spinning, of course. 

Most prisons and Protectorate buildings were constructed in rural areas whose fiscal growth was, prior to Scion’s appearance, dwindling, to say the least. The communities allowed the massive projects to take place because of the promise of returning industry, more jobs. Building and providing for prisons — parahuman or otherwise — has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. It is important to mention, however, that the majority of profits of companies involved therein, such as Corrections Company of America and Supervillain Containment Incorporated, are derived from the (legal) exploitation of prisoners for labor and from the monopoly they have over selling to prisoners via the commissary system and paying for phone-calls. Not to mention the billions more the government makes from merchandise depicting the likenesses of various Protectorate members and the blockbuster movies inspired by their “heroics” (movies whose content must first be okayed by the US military).

But all this spending on Tinker technology and prisons has done very little to curtail actual crime. It is true that crime overall has dipped in the past few decades, but it is difficult to attribute this fact to increased policing. (More likely factors include the removal of lead from many household products and to overall greater material conditions for the population at large). But crime involving a parahuman ability is considered a different category in surveys conducted by the FBI and others, and that number has hardly changed at all in the years since it started to be recorded. 

So: if the establishment of the Protectorate has done little to nothing to impair the ability of supervillains and instead has led instead to further bloating of the prison population and a greater number of police killings, then why does it exist at all?

I hear the indignant cries already. The Slaughterhouse 9! The Endbringers! 

Let’s discuss the Endbringers, then. If not for the Protectorate and its international equivalents, the world would have ended long ago, ripped apart by Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Simurgh. This point I will concede. Most of us owe our lives either directly or indirectly to the courageous capes who put their lives on the line to stop the otherworldly threat the Endbringers pose. However, it isn’t only the so-called do-gooders who help out, is it? The coalition of anti-Endbringer forces is composed not only of “heros” also but of the very villains the Protectorate is actively working to imprison during peacetime. And of course those powerful parahumans who have already been placed in detention facilities are precluded from lending their services to the fight against the Endbringers. 

This applies not only to the Enbringers but to all S-Class Threats, including the Slaughterhouse 9. From this perspective it seems that the Protectorate is doing more harm than good in the eternal war against the seemingly endless amount of existential threats. 

And if that is true, and if it is also true that the Protectorate and its subsidiaries exist not as a potent crimestopping force but as a mere vessel for commercial interests, then it is high time we talk about its dismantlement. To many, this cause may seem preposterous. It is difficult to imagine a world without such an institution, despite how recently it has come into existence. But that was true of monarchy, of slavery, of every unjust aspect of past societies. Progress and justice are only words until we act collectively to bring them about.

#

**Is Scion a Fascist?**

_By Carl “Truthteller” Glossenschofft_

_I think a good case can be made for DW Griffith’s_ _A Birth of a Nation_ _as the first American superhero film, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks._

— Alan Moore, author of _Watchmen_

When I was a young man in the Seventies and becoming increasingly aware of the political world due to the various anti-Vietnam War movements, I would have told you the concept of the “Superhero” was innately fascistic. The comics I had seen growing up — Batman, Iron Man, etc. — were fun for a ten-year-old me, full of color and action. But an educated me found the parallels between a character like Superman and the Nazi ideal of the Ubermensch too great to ignore. Something about the sight of children gawking at big strong men brutally assaulting poor, often black, criminals made me queasy. 

But then Scion showed up.

At first, like most people at the time, I was convinced this was either some kind of elaborate Cold War scheme, or a weapon that would soon bring about the apocalypse. But as the Golden Man stuck around, and as the parahumans sprouted up around me and coalesced into big government bureaucracies, I started to wonder: who is this guy, really?

Parahumans, naturally, have had an enormous influence on our global culture. But has that influence been positive? I would argue that it has not, and that it has only aided the cause of far-right nationalism in the geopolitical landscape. I would even go so far as to say that it has _normalized fascism_. 

With parahumans, the world is in a constant state of war. Much of our political discourse has been dominated by discussions of stopping the capital-E Enemy. Who is this Enemy? As in all fascist systems, they are vaguely defined. They are the Joker-like Chaotic-Evil Super Villains intent on destabilizing the great USA via attacking good, hard-working middle-class people like you and me. As for specifics, well, that isn’t so important, is it…?

This is of course nothing new, but it is an environment ripe for ultra-nationalism to take hold in. Parahumans, and especially their portrayal in popular culture, have exacerbated this potential greatly. So it is important to acknowledge how fascistic thought has already invaded the minds of the American public, and to consider ways to undo this process.

Here I will outline just a few ways in which post-Scion America is already aligned with many fascist regimes (the qualities of which Umberto Eco outlined in his brilliant essay “Ur-Fascism,” which I will be taking many observations from):

  1. The Cult of Tradition. Many of America’s greatest heroes today have made no attempt to obscure the fact that their aesthetic is derived at least partially from those old stories of which I spoke earlier. Much as the Nazi regime combined elements of right-wing political theory with German occultism, the US has done the same with the supernatural tales of the Justice League and the Avengers.
  2. Elitism. Like any reactionary ideology, fascism is inherently aristocratic. In our case the aristocracy is the Protectorate, led not by parliamentary democracy — something fascists have always abhorred — but by strength. And The Triumvirate are our leaders, Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler, stronger than the weak masses, who are themselves stronger than the masses native to other countries.
  3. Newspeak. Is it a coincidence that the additions to the American lexicon following the establishment of the Protectorate are of a decidedly elementary nature? Tinker, Blaster, Brute. These are names children could learn. The purpose of such an impoverished vocabulary is the restriction of critical thought. The Nazi and Falangist textbooks used to teach schoolchildren used very simple grammar and neologisms, the way American Parahuman History textbooks do today.
  4. Machismo and Sex. Why is it that our powerful military leaders, Legend and Eidolon and so on, wear not military fatigues as they ought to (legally, the Protectorate is a branch of the military) but gaudy, skintight costumes? The idolization of masculinity, as exemplified in the male Protectorate members by the bulging muscles and tasteless accentuation of their crotches, is a core tenet of fascism. I suppose our circumstances are more progressive, though, than the regimes of the early Twentieth Century, as the woman’s role is valued more. But it still applies: compare posters of Alexandria to Nazi propaganda featuring blonde-haired, buxom Frauleins.
  5. Heroism and the Cult of Death. I watched on in horror recently as my young son read to me his assigned essay on the unsubtly named Hero and his legacy. He explained to me in his beautiful voice that Hero exemplified how, indeed, we should all be heroes, and how we all are already heroes because we are American, and how we should all strive to die a heroic death the way Hero did. During the Spanish Civil War, it wasn’t uncommon for Franco’s troops to shout, _Viva la Muerte!_ , translated in English as, Long Live Death! For fascists, life is lived for struggle, and a heroic death is the only way to achieve spiritual peace.



These are certainly not the only fascistic tendencies of a parahuman-rich world. If you’d like to read more about it, especially about parahuman militarism, I’d recommend Curly Werther’s excellent book _Superheroes as Tools of Imperialism: The Protectorate in the Gulf War_. 

But I believe by identifying these tendencies, we stand a greater chance of defeating them. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying all parahumans are themselves fascists, but that the systems and political rhetoric developed since the beginning of their presence are. 

So if it is Scion who is the source of all these new Ubermenscher and all the trouble they’ve caused, and if he is a man in the traditional sense of the word, he must be held accountable. Or, if he is some kind of god, then I suggest we heed the advice of the ever-relevant Mikhail Bakunin: “If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Umberto Eco's essay "Ur-Fascism" is available here: https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf


	10. Chapter 10

Circus watched as Taylor tied up the guards, listened to her huffs of air and the constant thrum of the bugs tethered to her person, and tried not to think of the word _beautiful_. They hadn’t meant to kiss Taylor. If an ounce of forethought had gone into it, they would not have kissed Taylor. 

It was a violent thing to do. An exercise of force. They hugged their knees to their chest and bit their tongue to keep from screaming. Guilt fell around their head like a veil. 

And yet even now, as her taut form and sweeping black curls came in through their periphery, Circus couldn’t let go of the notion that had made them do it in the first place: beautiful — so, so beautiful. And they realized now how that notion had been simmering at the back of their skull for all this time. A constant tingling along their spine, in their midsection. Had it been there when the two had first met? It was difficult to remember. What mattered now was that it would not go away. 

Taylor would not go away. The next hours were agony and pleasure at once. All alone together (except for the half-conscious pigs), watching as the sun rose and as their plan went off without a hitch. This was a future they’d be happy in. No ads, no bills, no competition, only Circus and Taylor, comrades together in service of a greater good. 

Of course, there was a long way to go. If it was possible at all. So many obstacles: Tattletale, Grue, the full weight of the US Military, potentially.

A little after Taylor left the factory building, a powerful reminder of this fact came in the form of a gunshot. The workers, elbow-deep in the baskets of bass, ducked and screamed. Circus shouted, “Get down!” and drew a knife from their hiding place, folded it against their wrist, and darted outside the factory building. 

Another gunshot, and then the pinging of a ricocheted bullet. They pressed their back to the brick wall and shuffled toward the source of the noise. And peeking from around the edge of a wall, Circus saw that it was Miss Militia, of course, as well as — a name so far back it was difficult to remember — Kid Win, with a smoky green pistol and sci-fi-looking slingshot respectively, aimed at nothing in particular. 

They watched the two invaders for a moment: Miss Militia sort of teetering (was she drunk?) and Kid Win whispering into her ear. Circus slid the knife back into thin air and stepped out toward the two with their hands up, and the weapons whipped around to face them.

“Of course,” said Circus.

“Circus,” said Miss Militia without lowering her weapon, “you’ve gone and done it this time. A whole — _hic_ — a whole factory. I’d be impreshed if I weren’t so fuckin’ angry.”

“Are you drunk?”

Then Kid Win in his scratchy teenage voice: “We got a tip. Workers being held hostage or something.” The elastic of his slingshot pulled tight, the pouch against his cheek.

“Ah,” said Circus. “Then you’ve come just in time. We’ve actually just freed the workers. And, seriously, Double-Em, if you’ve been drinking maybe don’t point that thing at me.”

The pistol in her hand became a submachine gun, and her wrist drooped slightly. She said, “It’s all your fault, you fuckin’ clown. This is my — _hic_ — my goddamn livelihood you’re screwing with. Clown. You know any real actual circus tricks? I bet you don’t. Clown.”

Then she belched and let loose a spray of bullets. Circus pirouetted around the projectiles and pushed their boots into the brick wall beside them and somersaulted over the next spray. No real trouble. And now there was a cloud of wasps around Kid Win’s face and still MM was blasting wantonly, drawing lines in the side of the building.

There was Kid Win’s muffled yell and the sound of the wiry elastic string of his slingshot let loose, which shot a twisting and writhing ball of green-red energy into the air, headed off toward space. Taylor tumbled ball-like onto the scene and without hesitation brought her black baton to the back of Kid Win’s neck — _crack!_ — and he toppled without grace onto the concrete, bits of power-armor sparking and smoking. The stench of burnt plastic. And Circus threw themselves into the air to gain enough momentum to connect their boot with the side of Miss Militia’s jaw, and she stumbled — you could’ve seen the stars around her head if you squinted — and finally dropped to the ground, curled like a fetus against her teammate. Her subordinate, more accurately.

Taylor and Circus breathed heavily and looked at each other, mirthless. 

“Shit,” said Circus. “I don’t know if we should’ve done that.”

“There wasn’t a choice. I felt a bullet go by my ear.”

“What now?”

“Make sure they don’t die.”

Taylor pushed away the cloud of flies and bees et al. away from their perch on Kid Win’s sleeping face and pulled an EpiPen from a hidden pocket and knelt down and jabbed it into the back of his thigh. She checked his pulse, then MM’s. 

She said, “They’ll be okay. I think. You should like tie them up or something. Grue’ll be here in a bit, in case, you know, backup arrives. But I really should go deal with Lisa. She gets dangerous when she’s scared.”

And then she was off. Circus was left in the dust. 

They took two zip ties from the air and lugged the two bodies to a sort of railing a few yards away and looped their arms through the bars and secured them. Even the sight of Taylor bludgeoning people to the ground made Circus’s whole body teem with energy. Something in the way she moved. The smell of her swirled around their mind.

They lay on the concrete, beside the sleeping superheroes. Taylor. Skitter. These were traitorous feelings. Doom, black and wispy, hung in the air. Soon all this would be gone. Inevitably. There was nothing any of them could do, and all of them knew it. 

Circus stood and inspected Miss Militia’s face. A small scar across the bridge of her nose, a petite mole under her left eye, and dark skin (maybe from Middle-Eastern heritage?). There was a darkness all around her. An aura which betrayed a deep internal pain. Circus was specially attuned to that kind of thing.

#

Grue arrived a half-hour after the battle, ambling up to Circus with a circle of swirling smoke draped over him like a cape, a cheery aspect despite the ambience. He was tall, much taller than Taylor (who was herself quite tall), and broad as well.

They shook hands. Brian saw the defeated combatants and sighed a hollow sigh. He said, “What happened?”

“We were attacked.”

“This isn’t good.”

“No. Probably not. But what were we supposed to do?”

“Their colleagues are going to come after them, you know. Once they notice they’ve been gone.”

“So should we hand them over?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s some way we can exchange them back for something. I don’t know.”

“Arms for hostages. Like the Iran-Contra thing.”

“What?”

“Nevermind.”

Grue leaned against the brick factory wall and looked up at the cloudless blue sky. Sun fell down on them both like a gas. Circus couldn’t stop sweating — they hadn’t stopped sweating since they’d arrived in Brockton Bay, despite the fact that, in terms of Fahrenheit, the Atlantic Northeast was nothing compared to the seaside tropicality of Nicaragua. Maybe there was something supernatural, extraterrestrial at play here. _A spectre is haunting New England…._

Circus watched Grue, watched the light bounce off his dark skin and dark clothes. Some perverse and reptilian part of their brain couldn’t help but ask: how am I supposed to compete with that? An internalized inferiority. But of course there was no competition anymore, not for Circus, save for the big one, the one that’s been around since prehistory: below against above. 

“You know, Circus,” said Grue, “I wasn’t super sold on the whole anarchy thing, in the beginning. Mostly I just wanted Skitter to be happy. She and I are like dating, actually ....”

“I know. She told me.”

“Really? That’s sort of unlike her. I don’t know. She’s changed, certainly. She’s been happier recently. I think I’ve been happier, too. I’m not the man I once was. In a lot of ways. That’s for sure.”

A long silence. The sounds of running machinery and barking gulls. Kid Win’s head lolled.

“I lived with my dad for a long time,” said Grue. “He was kind of hardcore, my dad. He was into fighting and that kind of thing. Taught me how to fight. He was always telling me to protect my family, that it was the most important thing. I really believe that, still. He had a poster of this guy Fred Hampton in his tiny little apartment. He told me: this man knew what struggle meant. He died protecting his people. That’s the most important thing.

“But recently, you know, I’ve felt like I can’t do it. I’ve felt weak. I can’t protect anyone. I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, in some ways, but also I’m so, so weak. But after you showed up, I don’t know, it’s like it doesn’t have to be just me. It’s not so lonely. I feel stronger, but also, you know, that I don’t have to be strong. I don’t why I’m telling you all this….”

Circus watched Grue say all this, all the while the scene of last night’s moonlit kiss playing in the back of their skull, and again they felt that veil of guilt. Taylor didn’t belong to him, no, but who were they to take her for themselves? They thought of telling Grue about it, about the kiss. What would he do? He would fight, of course, but perhaps it was worth a fight to be rid of this awful sickly shame.

But then Miss Militia stirred awake, and they didn’t have time to consider it longer. 

She squinted up at the sun and groaned and tugged against her flimsy restraints. A pistol formed in her bound hands and she got off a shot — into the concrete building (Circus heard more screaming from inside) — before they grabbed her hands and ripped the weapon away, which dissipated into verdant haze. Grue wrapped his inky tendrils around her body, and then in his hands was a sort of smoking derringer, aimed at the space between her eyes. 

“Fuck,” said MM.

“Sobered up yet?” said Circus.

“She was drunk?” said Grue. 

“She was shitfaced,” — they bent down to yell in her ear — “Do you want some water?”

She yanked again at her plastic chain. “You’re screwed now, Clown. The cavalry is on their way as we speak. You don’t stand a chance.”

“What if we have a gun to your head?” said Circus. “Would they still fuck with us?”

“They have ways of dealing with grunts like you.”

“They’ve tried before. You have to pretty goddamn incompetent to work for the Protectorate, if you ask me, so I think you’re going to be stuck with us for a while, Double-Em.”

Kid Win thrashed in his slumber. Miss Militia spat onto the asphalt. Circus pulled a canteen from their hidden dimension and brought it to her lips, and she drank scornfully. 

Circus’s phone buzzed in their pocket. They put the water away and checked the number — blocked — which meant it was Angel. “I have to take this,” they told Grue. “Watch her.”

They dashed to the other end of the building and accepted the call.

“Angel?”

“ _El Circo_ , hey, uh, I believe it’s possible we have a problem on our end.”


	11. Chapter 11

Angel blinked his eyes open and sat up in bed and put his index fingers to his temples and the pain left him temporarily blind. Saccharine nausea tumbled around in his gut like a million writhing maggots. Geraldo, still asleep, flipped to the other end of the bed. Geraldo glowed, not from some external source, but from within — it was part of his power. Right now it was difficult to look at. The light burned his retinas.

Gradually Angel rose to his feet, shut the drapes to hide from the sunlight shooting into his tiny apartment, and loped to the fridge and drank long and hard from a can of beer. Hair of the dog. What a night. He shaved and showered and dressed and was in the process of finishing off the beer when Geraldo grabbed him from behind, wrapped his arms around Angel’s midsection, bit the lobe of his ear. Geraldo gave off a constant feverish heat, emanating from the flame that lived inside his body. To be close to such heat was opiate.

“Where are you off to so early?” said Geraldo (in Spanish). His erection poked into the small of Angel’s back. 

“ _Lo siento_ ,” said Angel. “A meeting I can’t miss.”

“ _Mi pequeño guerrillero_.”

“I’ll be back in a few hours. Will you be here?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“So mysterious,” said Angel, and ripped himself away from the heat. “Lock the door behind you if you decide I’m not worth waiting for.” And he left without so much as a goodbye kiss. 

He climbed down the stairs and out onto the cobblestone streets, which glistened and dazzled under the tropic sun. Last night was the first time Geraldo and he had slept together. Not that he remembered much of it. It kept coming back in flashes along his journey: sloppy stripping, the patchy dark hair across Geraldo’s broad chest. All this after a month of coy flirting. Angel had long awaited the final fiery eruption of passion. Maybe it was time to cut back on the drinking, he thought, as a spasm of pain hit his head.

He darted through the back alleys of Eastern Managua, his hometown, even if it had changed dramatically since his birth. Low wood houses with stone-shingled roofs replaced by tall blocky concrete, accented by patches of bright green gardens. Still he had nothing but love for the city. A home to the scrappy yet strong, the powerful firebrands who refused to be stepped on their entire lives.

The party last night was full of people like that. Revolutionaries, aspiring or accomplished. Technically it had been held in Angel’s honor. To celebrate the success of the project which had come to be known in his circles as “ _el punto negro_ ,” roughly, “the black spot,” the operation which would establish a vanguard in the great American Empire. A dark stain that could never be fully contained or removed. A lot of long nights and seditious planning had come to fruition in the past week. 

And what a celebration! On the rooftop of the Party Building that sat by the shores of Tiscapa Lagoon, which burned orangely against the sunset, there had been singing, dancing, and Geraldo Vásquez-De León, _el operador paramilitar_ who everyone talked about, who no one could take their eyes off of. His long black hair lit up by his own burning insides. His broad shoulders, his fighter’s muscles bulging against a pink satin dress-shirt. And then vodka shots — nice stuff, straight from the motherland — until the memory got fuzzy around the edges. And finally stumbling back to Angel’s. He wished he had better recollection of the rest. 

He sighed as he entered the _Plaza de la_ _Revolución_ (totally empty at this time of day) and prayed that the meeting would not last long. Who he was meeting he had never seen in person before. He didn’t know their real name, either. Of course, “Angel” was not his own “real” name, but one he’d adopted in his days abroad to better fit his new role — Lenin, too, was only a pseudonym — but he stuck with it afterward, deciding he liked it better than the one his vampire of a mother had given him, so long ago.

He found the man in the tomb of Carlos Fonseca — founder of the FSLN, forever enshrined beside an eternal flame — cleaning his round glasses, dressed poorly for the balmy weather in a long black overcoat. On the phone, Angel called the man Mr. Spleen. His contact in Moscow.

“I believe congratulations are in order,” said Mr. Spleen (in Russian, which was among the many languages Angel spoke fluently). “The Black Spot has been established much quicker than we had originally anticipated.”

“ _Gracias,_ Mr. Spleen, but only part of the credit belongs to me. Really you should be thanking my colleague, Circus, who did much more of the difficult work, over in The States.”

“Perhaps I will, if I ever get a chance to visit them. Of course, you know the reason I am here and not there. Why I have asked to speak with you today.”

“You said over the phone there were more threats from the US?”

“In a manner of speaking. My superiors received a memo late last night that indicated US Intelligence is aware of our operation here in beautiful Nicaragua.”

“Surely they’ve been aware since the beginning, though?”

“Yes, Angel, but this memo indicated also that they were fully aware of the connection between the operation here and The Black Spot. They were very specific, as well. Your name came up — your _real_ name — as well as the name of your colleague. What was it? Circus?”

“ _Mierda_.”

“Yes, indeed. And the memo went on to explain that they would retaliate against our intrusion with force. Here, however, is where the specificity ran dry. I have no idea what kind of ‘force’ they mean to use. We can only assume the worst, however, which is why I came here to—”

And as if on cue, there was a kind of blasting noise from outside, followed by the skittering sound of stone on stone. The two men swore aloud. Angel said, “We should get out of here, get back to the military base.” Mr. Spleen, somehow even whiter now, nodded, and the two dawdled out of the dark mausoleum, onto the vast courtyard.

They jogged toward the entrance to the _Plaza_ but were cut off by a massive beam of red-hot energy shooting through the dome of the nearby cultural museum and down to an endpoint mere yards from the pair, a big black scorch mark. Both screamed and whipped around to sprint in the opposite direction, only to be interrupted by a bright green flash and the sudden appearance of a tall man beside them — Angel only needed a split-second to recognize him, dressed in tight latex and a green cloak, as Eidolon — who put his long arms around a howling Mr. Spleen, and then there was another flash, and Mr. Spleen and Eidolon had vanished.

Angel, all alone now, now began to run to the nearest cover: the museum which had recently been deprived of its dome. He glanced around wildly and saw the blue sky polluted by two dots, so far away and yet so, so close. They could only be those other two devils: Legend and Alexandria. He would’ve screamed if he had enough breath left.

Somehow he managed to get inside the museum and into a sort of coat room attached to the lobby. And panting, he took out his bulky satellite phone and dialled.

“ _El Circo_ , hey, uh, I believe it’s possible we have a problem on our end.”

“Angel?” said Circus. “You sound out of breath.”

“The Triumvirate. They’re here.”

“The Triumvirate?”

“Yes. Nicaragua. They’re here. They already took my Russian contact. They know.”

“Hold on. Slow down. What do they know?”

“They know everything, Circus! They know about me and you and our whole operation. They’re retaliating. With force. And, no—”

Here Angel was interrupted by a burst of green light and the feeling of big strong arms around his waist for the second time that day, and the phone fell to the ground, and there was another flash, and Angel was gone.

#

Back in Brockton Bay, Taylor had arrived in the section of land that had once belonged to Tattletale. Already she could see that something was wrong. There was a sort of exchange going on between two men — she saw the green of cash. And a block down there was a man sleeping on a long strip of cardboard, dressed in rags. Lisa….

She began to jog in a vain attempt to get rid of some the stress squeezing on her insides. The Protectorate, the kiss, Grue, Tattletale, her dad — it felt as though the ground she stood on was crumbling. There was nothing to hold on to anymore. 

She arrived at the shelter which contained Lisa’s base of operations and barged inside and ignored the people who startled at the sight of her and found the receptionist and asked them in as soft a voice as she could manage (which wasn’t very soft at all), “Where is she?”

“Ms. Tattletale?” said the receptionist, who was a redheaded girl who couldn’t have been older than sixteen. “She’s not here.”

“What do you mean she’s not here?”

“She left an hour or so ago. Didn’t tell me where she was going.”

“Fuck.”

Taylor made her way through the building, down the dingy passages into Lisa’s secret lair. The door was locked, but Taylor had a key. Where had the rift been formed? What was her best friend keeping from her?

Lisa’s room was empty, the monitors black, the bed unmade. There was a cork board hung on the far wall, and where once there had been pictures of the leaders of various BB gangs there was now only a collection of clippings and photos of Circus. On the corner of a desk there was an empty bottle of aspirin.

Taylor took out her phone and dialed Lisa’s number. No answer, of course. 

Weren’t they teammates? Weren’t they friends? Again she felt the powerful distance from people she had once known. It was only a matter of time before Brian was gone as well. Soon she would be as alone as that first night in costume. Soon it would be all over.

She called Circus next, who did pick up. “Tattletale isn’t here,” she said.

“What? Where is she?”

“Hell if I know, Circus. Tell me at least Grue is there with you.”

“He is. Miss Militia just woke up. Kid Win is still asleep. Any ideas about where Tattletale could’ve gone?”

“No. She’s pissed at you, Circus. She’s put pictures of you up around her room. It’s not good. I’ll go look for her.”

“Wait, Tay—Skitter, there’s something you should know….”

Another shot of ice in her stomach. “Tell me. Quick.”

“My guy in Nicaragua, my, you know, handler, he called me just now to say the Triumvirate is there. In Nicaragua. They’re retaliating or something, I don’t know, he said they were like kidnapping people. I’m worried about him.”

“Fucking goddamnit. What does this mean? Are we in danger?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. Probably we are in danger. For a lot of reasons. Watch out for PRT forces or whatever.”

“Shit. I will. What are you going to do with Miss Militia and Kid Win?”

“Maybe we could exchange hostages or something. I’m seriously at a loss. I think you should still go look for Tattletale. Maybe she’s already been taken. I don’t know what I can do except wait.”

And Circus hung up.

Taylor hadn’t slept in a long time. There was a salty glaze of sweat across her body. Her heart thumped up against her ribs. She looked again at the printed shots of Circus from all angles, a moment of comfort, before she was off again, out into the daylight.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps the image of a gun-toting Kurdish woman bearing the American flag hasn't aged so well since 2011....
> 
> Şehîd namirin!

A newscast:

“Protests all across the nation. In the Raleigh-Durham area a protester was killed late last evening by police. When other protesters attempted to recover the body, they were shocked to find that one Jim Corpuscle, a.k.a., Necrotize, an agent of the Southeastern branch of the Protectorate, had reanimated the dead man and was using the corpse as a sort of riot shield. PRT officials have yet to comment.

“If you’re just joining us, these protests are largely in response to the establishment of the Brockton Bay Autonomous Zone, and to the subsequent shooting of one Pierce DuPont by a Protectorate actor. 

“In South Dakota earlier today witnesses report the formation of local Villains into a new coalition or team or gang. Confirmed members include: Iyotake and Mahpiya, both known parahuman criminals who have been on the Protectorate’s most wanted list since 2007 when they were involved in the destruction of a government-owned oil-refinery. They, along with at least three other unknown parahumans, traveled through Black Hills National Forest to the iconic Mt. Rushmore Monument, and using their various destructive capabilities defaced the structure. The suspects are believed to be armed and dangerous.

“This just in: the East Northeastern branch of the Protectorate has issued a statement confirming that one Miss Militia, the alleged shooter of Pierce DuPont, has been captured by the Brockton Bay Autonomous Zone. The statement went on to explain that negotiations were underway and that, quote, ‘all options are still on the table.’

“In the United Kingdom—”

Circus switched off the radio and glared down at Miss Militia, and then at Kid Win, whose eyes remained shut. Grue had volunteered to aid in the process of transporting the recently processed fish to the central refectory, so it was only the three bodies left outside the factory building, only two conscious minds. 

“The Protectorate doesn’t negotiate with terrorists,” said Miss Militia to Circus. “You all are hopelessly fucked.”

“Are we terrorists?” said Circus. 

“Oh I’m filled to the brim with terror, Circ’.”

“What happened to you, Double-Em? I’ve heard the rumors. You weren’t born here, were you? Are you an immigrant? Were your parents? Your parents’ parents?”

“I’m a patriot.”

“You’re brainwashed. Come on, Em-Em, tell me your origin story. To kill the time until someone comes to your rescue. Tell me what made you want to get wasted before coming to face me. Where you were born, at least.”

Miss Militia sighed, yanked again at the zip-tie that had bitten into her wrist flesh, looked at her unconscious companion, who breathed heavily into his own chest, still emanating the nose-coating scent of burnt plastic, hot metal, stove-gas. A V of gulls passed overhead, dropped their waste mere feet from the trio.

Finally she said, “I was born in a little border village between Turkey and Syria. My mother and father were Kurdish.”

“Kurdish. Were they fleeing, then? Is that how you got here?”

“No. They were killed. In the Eighties, you know, I was just a little kid when the Kurdish Nationalists, the PKK, began their full-scale insurgency. Of course, I didn’t understand this at the time, but they wanted a Kurdish state, they wanted Kurdistan, or at the very least legal representation. And they were prepared to fight for it.

“The Turkish government, especially since the military coup in 1980, had prohibited our language, our culture, our very existence. Called us ‘mountain turks’. I’ve read about all of this since then, but again at the time I had no idea. And so at the height of the conflict the Turkish Armed Forces came south and massacred whole swathes of us. Including my parents.

“The children — including me — they used to clear the defenses, the mines. That’s when I got my powers. I saw God, and He handed me a gun, and I killed them. And then I fled. First to the UK and then here. I loved America. I love America. It is a dream just to be here, away from all of that. I got rid of my accent, changed my name. I love this country so much. 

“That’s why you’re such a jackass, Clown. You were born here. You have no idea how lucky you are, and to be a  _ villain  _ on top of all that … fucking Clown. And then I got briefed that you were working on behalf of the US’s enemies. That was it. I thought: you’re dead.

“But late last night — or rather very early this morning; I don’t sleep, you know — I was reading about all of this. Kurdish history, my history, and all the psycho bullshit you were spouting, Clown. You heard of this guy,  Ö calan? Abdullah  Öcalan?”

“Of course. Jineology, and so on.”

“Right. He was leading the PKK circa the time of my parents’ death. I think I remember seeing him, at one point. I remember there were pictures of him hung up all around the place. I remember everyone calling him a hero. They captured him, maybe a decade ago. I had no idea. He’s slated to be executed in a Turkish prison. The CIA was part of the operation to capture him. I had no idea about that, either. 

“And I had already had a drink or two by the time I was reading about all this on Wikipedia, and I also saw he had been publishing stuff from prison, so I put on civilian clothes and stumbled down to that bookstore on 17th Street — have you ever been there? It’s owned by this Iranian guy, and they sell books in Arabic as well as English. So I thought they might have it. They opened early for me, and they did. Something something _Women’s Revolution_ , it was called, which sounded interesting, and I took it back to the Protectorate headquarters and read straight through in one sitting.

“And I thought about how all my life — at least, my uncostumed life in the USA — how people had treated me. Because I was a girl, because my skin was dark. And I thought, too, how they changed their tune when I had a gun in my hand. And I thought of all the reports about the war that started in Syria, and the pictures of olive-skinned women with AK-47s. A country isn’t free unless its women are free. And I looked at the stars and stripes all over my body, and I drank, Circus. I only stopped drinking when they called and told me what you’d done while I had been reading.”

She paused and squeezed her eyes shut, and little rivulets fell down her cheeks, and the sight made something churn in Circus’s chest. They felt the way they’d felt seeing their father cry for the first time. Their father, who was strong. Circus put their hand on Miss Militia’s shoulder, and then pulled the star-spangled bandanna from her neck and grabbed the Zippo from their hiding spot and lit it up, watched the patriotic embers float like Mastered bugs into the darkening sky. 

Then their phone rang for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

“Circus,” and it was the voice of the nurse who’d helped them dress Pierce’s wound.

“What is it?”

“It’s Pierce. He, um, he passed away.”

“What? When?”

“Maybe half an hour ago. The wound got infected, and really we were unprepared for that. There wasn’t anything we could’ve done.”

“Fucking fuck,” said Circus, and flipped the phone closed and spiked it into the concrete.

“What?” said Miss Militia.

“Oh, you’ll be happy. Bitch. The man you shot is dead.”

“Oh my God….”

Circus slumped to the hard ground. Kid Win began to snore. All you could hear was the distant cacophony of fish processing and the  _ drip drip drip  _ of two sets of tears against the concrete. 

“Circus,” said MM. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Yes you did, pig.”

“You’re right. Oh God, of course you’re right. Look, I was thinking about it earlier, but now I’m sure. I’m leaving the Protectorate.”

“Yeah, you’ll leave to go to the Birdcage.”

“They wouldn’t prosecute me for something like that. Armsmaster is still free.”

“‘Murder’s legal when you got a badge…’” sang Circus, and they stood and wiped their eyes and took a knife from their pocket and cut Miss Militia free of her restraints. She looked down at her callused hands and sniffled. 

Just then there was a roaring overhead. The sound of a jet-engine too close to the ground. And a darkness came over the sky, and wind whipped their exposed hair around, arms held up to stop the dust. It landed. Dragon.

“Circus,” came the robot voice. “Please hand over Miss Militia and Kid Win. If you do so in a timely manner, the question of your detainment shall be postponed.”

“Dragon,” said Miss Militia, “I … I’m not being held prisoner. I quit.”

“Quit?” said Dragon.

“I don’t work for the Protectorate anymore. Pierce DuPont is dead.”

“That is very troubling to hear, Hannah,” — she stiffened at the sound of her name — “Quitting is not exactly an option for members of the Protectorate. Your head contains knowledge that could be dangerous in the wrong hands. My readings do not indicate Master involvement.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” said Circus, who had pulled a Molotov Cocktail (unlit) from their hidden dimension and held it cautiously behind their back.

“It is also very troubling,” said Dragon, “to hear that a citizen is dead at your hands. I am sure there will be repercussions. I will have to take it up with PRT officials.”

“Do whatever you have to,” said MM. “But I’m done working for you. For anyone.”

“And Circus,” said Dragon, “there are repercussions in your future as well. For your involvement with the Undersiders. For your involvement in the stealing of this factory. Now, shall I take Kid Win with me now, or would you like to arrange a handoff for later on? I do not wish to use violence in such a diplomatically treacherous environment.”

“Then you should leave,” said Circus. 

And without another word the metal woman had flames at her feet and was rising and with a crack shot off into the horizon. A trail of black smog left in her wake.

#

At the other end of her territory, Taylor was coming up to the border. The border of The Undersiders’ control, and the border of her sanity. 

For the past several hours she had walked up and down every block that she had once laid claim to, searching for Lisa. She asked everyone she passed if they’d seen a woman in purple and black, and they’d all shaken their heads and then thanked her for all that she had done. Most had a grin on their face, which wasn’t what she expected from the people who lived here.

There was no trace of Tattletale, of course. If she didn’t want to be found, she couldn’t be. All Taylor could hope for was a quick end to her temper tantrum. 

Now she stood against the exterior of what had once been a church. From inside she could hear an assembly of men and women from the neighborhood discussing the logistics of running things. They didn’t need her. They could manage their own affairs. Taylor walked on.

Soon she came upon the street her father lived on. Dad. She had wanted to bring him into the territory, where he could live without some vampire of a landlord breathing down his neck, where he could actually do some work. But was that a good idea anymore? With the pressure, the danger, that threatened to explode at any moment? 

She found herself jogging down the street. Not to say hello — she was still in costume, after all — but just to see if there was eviction notice on his door, to assure herself there was still time. But when she was a block away, she heard sirens, and her breath stopped short. The worst tumbled through her head: visions of her father floating in a tub of red, a garage smoggy with carbon monoxide. Her jog became a sprint.

She saw police cars in front of her old home, and boxy black vans, and she ducked into an alleyway. And when she poked her head out there he was: her father, sans glasses, with two men dressed all in black on either side of him. They led him up and into one of the vans. He was in handcuffs. 

Taylor’s phone rang, and she jumped. A blocked number. She picked up.

“Taylor,” said Lisa. “I’m so sorry.”


	13. Interlude Two: Lisa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Torture, a little drug use.

Where had it all gone? All the puerile pretending, the make-believe, the pageantry? When had the world gone from the four-color ink to lightless gray, from comic-book to novel? It had happened slowly and all at once. Absent one day present the next, although surely there must have been some foreshadowing. Now she lived in a material world. Perhaps she always had. 

Once when he was still alive Lisa’s brother told her, “I think you lack empathy.”

“Why do you say that, brother-dear?”

“Sometimes when I’m sad, I mean really sad, depressed even, you look at me like you’re more interested than concerned.”

Maybe he was right. All the same, she’d said to him, “People get what they deserve.”

But maybe he was right. Then he was dead, though, and it was easier to live in a world without a past. Or at least a world whose only past was marked by the steady growth of wealth. History didn’t matter. She never made mistakes.

Her first impression of Circus was: chaos. Here was someone whose life wasn’t orderly, who made their decisions by consulting the lions and tigers and bears that ran round their head unchained. A real Circus up there. An unknown unknown. But Taylor, sweet Taylor, had made a mistake. She had let herself be convinced that no order was — in a shocking twist — in fact a greater, more “moral” type of order. Sweet, innocent Taylor. Innocent?

And so then what was she supposed to do? Talk sense into her? Taylor was sensible enough already, not to mention stubborn, and Lisa worried the already cavernous chasm between them (the one that had grown unnoticed for weeks and weeks and weeks while monsters tore through her hometown) would only grow larger if she were to don the “tough love” persona, use her lethal words to excise the chaos-tumor from her head. And at that point she was more interested than concerned. 

So she tried a more oblique route, as has always been her wont. Dirt. Dirt and dirt and dirt for miles and miles and miles. For starters, Circus was — in a not-so-shocking twist — a dissident. A real troublemaker whose misdeeds could fill whole volumes. She brought all this to the Clown themself so as to instill the fear of Rationality in them. But they didn’t seem to mind. They, too, were stubborn.

So she brought it to Taylor instead. When she did, though, the New World Order, the one with black and white brutalism instead of Jetsons-style naivete, showed itself. Taylor wasn’t her old self when she went to see her. Someone had crawled inside her skin and begun to talk through her wide red mouth. What a shame, what a shame.    


The old Taylor stripped on rooftops. The old Taylor had antifreeze instead of blood. The old Taylor was beautiful. The old Taylor was hers and only hers. The old Taylor was gone.

So what did Lisa do next? She took the kind of direct action craven poseurs like the Clown are too afraid to. She went to the White Hats. With Taylor gone and with her wealth in the hands of too many to count, there was nothing to keep her out on the streets. The only gold she needed was already in her brain. So she crept out of her cave of a room with her temples pulsing like drums and stumbled down the too-bright streets and into the domain of people who still lived in Detective Comics and spilled her gold onto the floor and they weren’t so stupid as to not shovel it up like goblins.

People get what they deserve.

#

The President of the United States of America of Earth Bet had skin made of plastic. The story was that in his first year in office there had been an assassination attempt. Not that the guy was so unpopular on paper. In fact he’d won the Electoral College and the Popular Vote by record numbers. The kind of landslide the Democrats hadn’t had since Johnson. In fact he — his name’s not important — kind of reminded you of Johnson. Southern, tough, and with the ambition and magnetism you associated with all Great Men. Plus he hated the Reds. (One of his more popular campaign slogans was simply “THEY’RE BACK,” which you often saw against an all-red background with a hammer and sickle in the watermark.) 

But yes, there was an assassination attempt. The vocal minority was much stronger than they were circa the time brains had fallen like hail on a Dallas street. And the SS hadn’t yet adjusted for this fact. So one night, alone in the White House, a man whose name has been lost to history appeared behind the POTUSOAOEB and drizzled science-fiction acid on his skin, and by the time help arrived he was a diagram of human musculature. Thank god, though, the country remained strong in its time of crisis, and after weeks and weeks of searching for a solution, one Dermal Dude, a Tinker from Akron, stepped up to the plate and stitched together a shining new suit for the Commander in Chief — one that would never wrinkle. Just so, the President’s skin was plastic.

And Lisa’s first night in the Protectorate safe-house, he came to see her.

He slid a key in the locked door and strutted in without asking. Just him. Lisa of course had been prepared for a lack of privacy, but wasn’t this perhaps a tad extreme? She wasn’t dressed. Only a government-issue white bathrobe covered her. The President with all his Southern charm averted his gaze while she went to go change. 

They sat at the card table. He said, “They tell me you’re the one who’s given us the keys to removing those commies like the stain they are.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered reflexively. She has always been awed by power.

“I forget your silly name — I’ll just call you Lisa. That alright? Well, Lisa, I was up here in New England for a campaign event — election year coming up, you know? — and I figured I’d stop by and thank you personally. I promise it isn’t politically motivated. You’re not even old enough to vote, ha ha ha.”

“Thank you, sir. I was just doing what I thought was right.”

“Well, you thought right, Ms. Lisa. The Nation is facing an existential threat. You know what it is. We all know what it is. If a cancerous ideology like the kind being supported in the lawless parts of this city is allowed to flourish, the Nation as we know it will cease to exist. And then what would we do?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I don’t either, frankly. Let me ask you something else, Ms. Lisa: the US Military has been the strongest in the world for a while now, but in the past few decades it has become an order of magnitude stronger. Although they’ve taken somewhat of a step back, Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon, are employees of the Protectorate. And since the Protectorate is indeed the newest branch of the US Military, and if I am the Commander in Chief and therefore have supreme control over it, and if I hate the damn Reds so damn much — which I most certainly do — then why do I not simply exercise such ultimate power in order to capture and/or kill everyone who has ever been associated with Communism? What’s stopping me?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“The answer, Ms. Lisa, is that nothing is stopping me except for mercy. Consider that fact tonight.”

And with that he stood and left. Lisa took her last remaining Vicodin (5mg hydrocodone, 2500mg acetaminophen, obliterator of headaches) and slept through to morning.

#

Next day she was on the transparent end of a one-way mirror. PRT Director James Tagg stood beside her with his thick arms crossed in front of him. On the other side of the glass were three people. 1) Alexandria, 2) Eidolon, and 3) Alfonso Lacayo-Morales, a.k.a., Angel.

Angel’s hands and arms were twisted vinelike around a piece of metal piping. His feet were bound together with cast-iron shackles, and his eyes were pried open like he was about to be given Ludovico treatment. Through his open mouth you could see several teeth missing, blood all down his chin. He was panting. He was naked. 

Alexandria bent down to look in his moon-sized eyes and said, “Angel, look, I don’t want to be unreasonable. In fact, if I were being less reasonable, I would’ve made you something less than human by now. That first lie you told me would’ve been your last words as a human being. Not as a living thing, but as a human being. Do you see what I’m saying, Angel?”

He nodded wildly.

“Great,” continued Alexandria, “That’s great. At least there’s some common ground between us. Sometimes when I have to interview [people of hispanic descent] like you, I struggle. You people can be so braindead. But you seem like an okay guy for the most part, Angel. If a little dull. So I’ll give you another chance to answer truthfully. What is Circus up to in Brockton Bay?”

“I have no idea,” squealed Angel desperately.

“He’s lying,” said Alexandria to Eidolon. (Lisa’s powers confirmed this.)

And Eidolon in his cloak and bodysuit began a process which Lisa had witnessed six times already. He fired from his fingertips a kind of bluish spray across Angel’s left hand and wrist. This spray would lower the temperature of Angel’s limb to a point just above that which would freeze his blood solid. He let Angel scream for a few seconds before using his other to apply a burnt-orange spray that would raise the temperature to a level just below that which would cause the destruction of his nerve endings. Eidolon performed this switch three times.

“Okay,” said Alexandria after the third. “I’m really sorry that had to happen again, Angel. But extensive testing has revealed to us that it is the most effective way to inflict pain that doesn’t leave a permanent mark. Sometimes we’ll use good-old-fashioned waterboarding for such a purpose, but as a Soviet agent you’ve been inured to waterboarding, isn’t that right? We know all about you, Angel. We know when you lie. So just tell us the truth, or Eidolon will have to choose a more sensitive appendage next time.” And she swatted at his penis and testicles.

“I don’t know  _ anything _ ,” said Angel, and Lisa looked away as Eidolon knelt to the ground.

She thought of Taylor again. She thought of the early days, when the light was soft and dry, when they were both still young. She thought of the sight of Taylor curled up in an opiate-induced ball on her father’s couch. But the screams interrupted her thoughts.

“You know, Tattletale,” said Tagg over the yells, “I was wrong about you. I see now that you were always trying to do the right thing. What you’ve done in the past few days has helped us immensely in the fight against crime. I don’t want you to have any second thoughts. You are doing the right thing.”

Then after Eidolon had finished Tagg asked her if there was anyone else who may give them answers vis a vis the Brockton Bay Autonomous Zone who could be “obtained without much fuss.”

She recalled the words: "...[N]othing is stopping me except mercy." And she told him.

#

When her power assured her no one would notice, Lisa stepped into the alleyway and pulled out a burner-phone and dialled.

“Taylor,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Lisa? What? Where the hell are you?”

“I can’t tell you where I am — I can’t risk you coming after me.”

“What the fuck is happening, Lisa? I just saw my dad get arrested.”

Traitorous tears grew in the corners of her eyes and fell onto the dirty concrete. “I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. They know who you are. I told them where your dad lived. I had to, Taylor. I had to I had to I had to. I’m so sorry.”

Taylor said nothing.

Lisa said, “I miss you so so so so much,” and hung up and snapped the phone in half.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: More torture (less "real," but perhaps more disturbing, you'll see....)

Taylor listened to the dial-tone and watched as the cavalcade of black vans drove off with her last tether to normality. Her eyes burned and dripped behind the yellow lenses of her mask. All the artifice she’d been standing on was beginning to buckle and shatter and collapse. All the anger and injustice and betrayal squeezed on her from every angle. No future now. Nothing to look forward to. Her world would end, and then everyone else’s.

She sprinted back inside her (former) territory, back inside her shell, and all the sun and heat bombarded her like so much artillery. All these images of solidarity she passed, the men and women and children huddled together with weary grins discussing their future, finally free, finally out from under the big black boot of the world — all of them would soon be back on their knees. And it was all her fault.

Down the baking asphalt and around the pregnant curve of the bay and onto the fishy docks, across the piers, directed only by sense and smell, for the tears and humidity had obscured her vision, and she didn’t dare take off her mask. Sweat coming off the back of her neck like a tracer.

“Skitter?” came the one safe voice left. “Skitter, what are you doing here?”

She looked up and saw Circus and who was this beside them? “What is  _ she  _ doing here?” 

“Miss Militia has had a change of heart,” said Circus.

“Something like that,” said Miss Militia, and extended her hand, which Skitter shook because such absurdity was what she had come to expect. 

“Did you find Tattletale?” said Circus.

“She called me just now to let me know she had sold us all out.”

“Shit,” said Circus. “And Dragon showed up just now to lob vague threats.”

“We’re doomed,” said Taylor gravely.

“We’re not doomed. We have to be optimistic. Optimism is an act of resistance.”   


“But we have to do something. If we don’t act now we’ll end up roadkill.”

“Any ideas?”

“My dad. They got my dad, Circus. Tattletale told Them, and now he’s in their custody, and they’re doing who knows what to him as we speak.”

“You want to rescue him?”

“What else could I do?”

“Maybe we should be cautious. I don’t think it would end well if you stormed the Protectorate building right now, what with the forces we have to presume they’re gathering.”

The three of them decided it would be best to gather all the (remaining) Undersiders and decide how they wanted to do things. Miss Militia volunteered to find Grue (because he would be the least likely to attack her on sight) and Circus and Skitter would head in the other direction toward Regent and Imp and Bitch, but not before stopping by her old building to amass an appropriately sized swarm from the stores she’d left there.  
Circus walked beside her, and she focused most of her attention on keeping her posture upright, although every fiber of her being wanted to fall to the ground and weep and weep and weep. Some of the fish smell had stuck to Circus. 

When they arrived at her old building where before she might have used the hidden entrance, she simply used the front door. Circus was supposed to go ahead without her, but they didn’t, instead followed her inside, up the stairs, and Taylor didn’t tell them otherwise.

Inside the room with the terrariums, she thought of all the bugs under her command. She thought of the colonies they had once belonged to. Ants and termites running through underground tunnels. Mosquitoes and wasps haunting the purple sky like a legion of poltergeists. Chaos. All of it chaos. And now they all belonged to her. All these arachnids prodding their many legs against the glass she had put them in, the scorpions, the ticks: All, all hers. And this thought was finally what caused her to drop to the scratchy carpet floor and pull off her mask and shove her face into her hands and begin to sob.

Circus dropped down beside her, put their hand on her shoulder. “Pierce is dead,” they said. “Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Taylor said nothing. She hated to cry. It felt like all the treacherous weakness was tumbling out of her for everyone to see. Somehow with Circus it wasn’t so bad. With Circus her weakness — and there was so much of it, when she forced herself to look — wasn’t an indictment of her character but merely an aspect of her humanity. She felt so human when she was with Circus.

“They’re all gone,” she said through the tears. “Everyone I ever loved is gone. My dad is screaming in pain right now as I sit here and mope and it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not,” said Circus, and rubbed her skeletal back. “Of course it’s not.”

“I’m a bad person, Circus. I’ve always been a bad person. Maybe you weren’t there to see it, and I’ve tried to not be, but there’s something in me, something buried deep in my fucking intestines that’s always scrambling to get out. Evil. I’m evil.”

“I don’t think anyone is evil, not really. Systems, sure, but not people. And definitely, definitely not you, Taylor.” 

And she turned and looked into Circus’s eyes, brown and innocent behind the plasticky red mask, and their mouth, which was red and wet and open. And the weighted orb of despair inside her gut was so, so heavy, and so she kissed Circus. She pushed her face into theirs and put her hands on either side of their squishy face. 

Her mind was blank, here, lost in Circus’s warmth. Everything happening outside disappeared in its entirety, all the loss and pain, and all that mattered was the sensation of their tongues together now, and the feeling of their legs between her own. All around them was a fiery heat, the heat of summer’s peak.

She wriggled out of her costume which smelled of salt and filth, and then moved Circus’s gloved hand up and under her tank-top and bra and gasped at the touch, all the while fighting away the thoughts of What will happen afterward? like a pack of rabid dogs. All that mattered was the heat and the touch here and now. Not the time that ticked past them and demanded action. Not the myriad pains of the outer world. Only the inside.

The distraction was such that all the bugs in the area, for in some cases the first time in their lives, were totally autonomous.

Circus nibbled at the lobe of her ear and she sighed and tried to undo the straps of their costume, but they stopped her and shook their head, and then slipped their hand under her ugly sweatpants and her underwear and rubbed her, and she grunted bestially and bit their shoulder and all the muscles and ligaments in her body strained and filled with pressure, and they pushed their (still gloved) middle finger inside her and kissed the nape of her neck, and pressure arced up through the center of her body, and then in and out and in and out and in and out, etc., etc., until finally she wrapped her whole body around Circus and shivered and kissed them on the mouth again and again, and then collapsed into the carpet, which felt so soft now, and the only thing in her head was blackness, and it had been so long since she slept….

#

Taylor had a dream. In her dream Lisa (dressed in lingerie, oddly) was placing termites and maggots and cockroaches in a metal bucket. She was grinning and humming the tune to “When the Saints Go Marching In.” In her fuzzy dream-mind, Taylor remembered that in elementary school she had once learned a version of the song that had replaced “saint” with “ant”. 

_ Oh when the  _ ants  _ / go marching in…. _

When the bucket was overflowing with arthropods Lisa grabbed the handle with both hands and stood, and the camera of Taylor’s vision panned to the left and revealed the other occupants of the all-white room to be her father and Circus, both bound to crucifixes and totally naked. Circus looked quite attractive without clothes (who knows if that’s what they looked like in the real world) but her nude father was quite an unpleasant sight. A mess of coarse black pubic hair and ribs which stuck out of near-translucent skin much too far. 

Lisa strutted over to the two, still humming, gaudy red stilettos click-clacking against the bright ground. She stood before Taylor’s father. Her heels put the two at eye-level. Her father whimpered, and Lisa grinned more broadly than should’ve been possible. Insects fell to the hard floor, which made a noise like,  _ tick tick tick _ .

“Danny, Danny, Danny,” said Lisa. “What are we to do with you?”

And then she put the mouth of the bucket against her father’s stomach with one hand and with the other from somewhere off-screen grabbed a medieval-looking torch, drenched in pitch. Her father, beginning to get the picture, screamed. 

Lisa said, “Shh, Danny. Just tell me where your daughter is, and I won’t have to do anything.”

Her father said, “I will never tell you anything.”

And Lisa rolled her eyes and put the flaming torch underneath the metal bucket, and after a few moments you could hear a sort of wet, crunching sound, and her father screamed again, louder this time, much louder. Red rivulets dripped down his belly, into the mess of pubic hair, and finally to the stark white floor. Lisa cut off his screams by putting her mouth on his. And when life had left him, she let the bucket fall to the floor, now completely empty, and looked over at Circus.

#

She woke to the sound of Charlotte’s voice. Panic spread throughout her body, hot and white, and she jumped to her feet. Her clothes were more in place than they had been when she fell asleep. Circus was nowhere to be seen.

From the entryway, Charlotte was saying, “Don’t worry, I can come back….”

“No, Charlotte, what is it?” called Taylor.

She stepped into the room and said, “The, uh, the garden has started to produce. Where should I bring the food?”

“Oh, um,” said Taylor. “There should be a storehouse a few blocks north of here. Look out for, you know, hostile forces.”

“Okay, great. Also, Skitter, you smell like … sex?”

“Shit, do I?”

“Sorry, it’s just, um, Grue just arrived.”

“Fuck,” said Taylor, and Charlotte shuffled away.

Taylor sniffed at herself and was headed to her room above to change when Brian stepped into her path, and she cowered from him reflexively. The muscles in her legs felt as though she had run a marathon an hour earlier. All the worry was returning to her, fact by fact, as if her anxiety was a computer that had needed to be rebooted.

Brian pulled off his smoking helmet and said, “Taylor? Are you okay? We were all together except for you, so they sent me over here….”

“Sorry. Sorry, I sort of passed out.”

“How long did you go without sleep this time?”

“Too long. Oh god, did they tell you?”

“Lisa, yeah. And your dad. I’m so sorry.”

“You knew her first. Are, um, are Bitch and Imp and Regent okay? And Circus?”

“Basically. I think Aisha and Alec are sleeping together.”

_ Sleeping together…. _

“Okay, sorry,” said Taylor. “I’ll just, uh, just change. And then we can go. Sorry.”

And she willed her legs to move, but they wouldn’t. Gradually the bugs around her revealed themselves as pinpricks in her mind, each one like a needle of regret, and here came more tears. She hadn’t cried so much in years. She pushed her head into Brian’s chest, which was firm and warm and smelled of sun.

“What’s wrong? Taylor, what’s wrong?”

“I slept with Circus.”


	15. Interlude Three: Mavis Davids and the Storm Underground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Referenced rape, white supremacy

Swinging dead in the moonlight was one Hank Jimminey, his face purple and bloated against the silvery stars, the swastika on his arm robbed of all its power. His executioners lay before him in the grass. The Storm Underground. All throughout Hank’s final thrashing they had cheered and whooped, but now that he was totally still, they joined together in one unified chant (to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”):  _ We don’t need no superhero / To tell us of our power…. _

The Storm Underground was formed in late 2008 after the Financial Crash and the election of the current POTUSOAOEB, when it was (finally) becoming clear in the minds of five eighteen-year-old members of the Detroit/Cleveland Wards that electoral politics had its limits. Named for the black-skinned white-haired X-(Wo)Man who had total control of the sky and the air, the  Storm Underground’s mission was one of community defense. The leader of the organization, Mavis Davids, a.k.a., Telegra, had witnessed firsthand how Wards protocols gave disproportionate protection to white suburbs while leaving black neighborhoods especially vulnerable to the ever-growing threat of supervillainous white-supremacist groups. 

So on the eve of her promotion to the Protectorate proper, Davids, along with four of her superpowered colleagues, resigned from their posts in order to rectify the discrepancy. Their new group (officially designated in PRT records as a “gang”) was militant, powerful, and unabashedly leftist. Dedicated not only to black liberation but to the dismantlement of global capitalism in its awful entirety.

That day they had spent hours and hours chasing Mr. Jimminey through city streets and finally into Lake Erie. In his desperation he dove into the grungy blue Great Lake, and Nyanza, a.k.a, Victoria Omondi, willed the freshwater into a great big fist which grasped the man in its liquid fingers. Then, when the pressure had made him unconscious, Charles Nelms, a.k.a, Blackstar, teleported the now six to a patch of woods a little outside Cleveland, under a tall white sycamore. And Snakewhip, a.k.a., Amanda Braithwaite, lifted her arms and with them the surrounding foliage, and twisted it all together into the shape of a noose and looped it around the neck of the still-sleeping Hank. And finally John-Henry Wooten, a.k.a, Big Bend, swung the grass rope around a sturdy-looking branch of the sycamore and yanked Hank up to his kicking death with one finger. 

What Hank Jimminey had done to warrant this exercise of force was kidnap a young black woman named Tyra Werther from Mount Pleasant and rape and mutilate her and then dump her corpse into the sewer. The cops refused to investigate due to their being so heavily infiltrated by the local white-supremacist gang SKN (Second Kristallnacht). So the Storm Underground got involved, and when the Storm Underground was involved not even the most foolhardy Nazis dared to interfere.

Now the sky was black and no one was coming to cut down Hank Jimminey’s swinging body. The Storm Underground below him switched on protest music from the Vietnam War, and Mavis stood and with her electro-magnetic powers made Hank’s body kick and jerk and said, “Looks like it’s time to dance!”

And she picked Victoria up and spun her around and the others rose to join them. 

_ Induction then destruction. Who wants to die? _

And Mavis put her hands in Victoria’s big coarse hair and kissed her mouth, only to be interrupted by the toe of the swinging boot above her colliding with her temple. They giggled and left the clearing together, out into the dark woods to finish the hard day pleasurably.

#

Later on, nude on a bed of warm and damp leaves, Mavis said, “Sometimes I think we’re not doing enough. Defense is good, but it’s not enough. And it’ll never be enough if we don’t do something proactive.”

“You’re ambitious, which is good,” said Victoria. She had the remnants of an accent from her birthplace of Kenya. “But sometimes you’re too ambitious.” And she traced a figure-eight into Mavis’s hip.

“You think being proactive is too ambitious?”

“What’s your idea of proactivity? You want to do what they’re doing Brockton Bay? Declare independence?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.  _ Something _ . It feels like from here we can only treat the symptoms and not the disease. But we have so much power, Victoria. So much power. And I can’t help but feel like we’re squandering it, somehow.”

“You want war? Is that what you’re saying? You know how I feel about violence, Mavis. Self-defense or even prophylaxis doesn’t bother me, but people, innocent people, will be hurt if we do what you’re proposing.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just always so frustrated, Victoria. Don’t be angry at me.”

“I’m not angry at you. I see where you’re coming from. But your vision sometimes gets so red, and when you’re like that you see nothing but nails for your electro-magnetic hammer. Do you see where I’m coming from?”

“I guess.”

“Good. I don’t want to talk anymore,” said Victoria, and manipulated the fluids in Mavis’s body and leaned over and kissed her.

#

The next day brought a busy schedule. First on the agenda was destroying the police memorial the City of Detroit had put up the previous week. It was the third of its kind, all of the previous iterations destroyed by the SU. Nyanza covered the hideous structure in a coating of water from the hydrant Big Bend had burst with his bare hands, and Telegra superheated it all to steam so quickly the result was explosive, and the stone of the monument fractured and flew to every corner of the courtyard.

The five fled the scene with sirens in the distance, snickering giddily among themselves. Next stop was Lake Erie Correctional Facility, where one Carson “CJ” Jeffries had been imprisoned for the alleged murder of a police officer, although, after reviewing the details of the case, it became clear to Mavis Davids and the rest of her team that he’d been acting purely in self-defense. Blackstar got them inside, and it would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to simply leave the same way, but the SU was nothing if not flashy, and so they spent the next half-hour bursting open cell-doors and disabling the pink guards.

Nothing out of the ordinary for the Storm Underground. And all before lunch.

And speaking of lunch, after returning CJ to his home and handing him a wad of expropriated cash, the five ate Dominos in an abandoned barn just outside city limits. Turned on the radio:

“...We have received confirmation just now that the man shot by Miss Militia three days ago, Pierce DuPont, has succumbed to his wounds. This news has engendered a resurgence in nationwide protests. In Los Angeles earlier today…”

“Oh my god,” said Amanda Braithwaite.

“Disgusting,” said Charles Nelms.

“We should help,” said Mavis Davids. “We’re just sitting around. In Brockton Bay they’re doing what we always said we would do. And now they’re in imminent danger. The Protectorate isn’t just going to sit idly by while whole swathes of a city get reclaimed.”

“Mavis….” said Victoria Omondi. 

“You’re saying you want to go head to head with the Protectorate?” said John-Henry Wooten. “How could that possibly end well? We’ve barely been able to survive doing this guerilla thing.”

“Look,” said Mavis, “what are we really doing here? Are we ‘protesters?’ Are we ‘activists?’ No. We’re warriors. We’re the vanguard. For the past couple years we’ve been shitting around the Midwest doing this — this — what  _ are _ we doing?”

“We’re  _ helping  _ people,” said Victoria.

“Helping people,” said Mavis. “How many people have we helped, really, when it comes down to it? A hundred? A thousand? It’s nothing. It’s popping cysts without curing the infection. In Brockton Bay they’ve helped ten times that number in one fell swoop, and they’re prepared to fight for it. What’s all this power good for? What’s it good for if we’ll just stay home, stay safe? How will anything change?”

And Mavis stood and looked down at her comrades reclined on the dirty wood floor of the barn and they looked up at her with concern at best and apathy at worst. She scoffed at them and left them there in the dust.

#

Mavis Davids kept two books close at all times: Malcolm X’s autobiography and Issue #290 of  _ Uncanny X-Men _ , whose cover featured Storm, broad and dark and buxom, her face wet with rain, eyes closed. She took the latter from its container and brought it to the bank of a creek a few hundred yards away from the barn. For as long as she could remember Mavis had wanted to be Storm. Storm had the sort of power that left her barely human, and yet, in every instance, she acted with compassion. With every bolt of lightning, every gust of wind, justice was being served. 

So when, all those years ago, Mavis woke to the sound of (what she learned later were) Klansmen smashing through their back door and shoving the muzzle of a rifle down her father’s throat and pulling the trigger once, twice, three times, and she found the bloody mess of him and then saw what she could only describe as Everything All At Once and then looked out across their backyard and saw fat, white ghosts and found she could burn them from the inside, she at least had a mentor to follow afterward.

What the comics hadn’t prepared her for, however, was the anger. No, for that she had to look back in time, learn for herself what her so-called teachers were too afraid to show her. This way she found more mentors: Malcolm, Sankara, and Louverture. 

She was eighteen when she managed to merge the two sides of her. The Superhero and the Revolutionary. Kindness and retribution. The red and the black. 

A useful dialectic to have, but sometimes the two sides contradicted one another. At the moment, Storm with her hair like vanilla ice-cream was on one shoulder telling her: stay here, stay with those you love and with those who love you. Whereas her late father on the other was whispering in her ear: they deserve the kind of punishment the devil is too merciful to give.

“How’d I know to find you here?” said Victoria from behind her.

Without looking at her Mavis said, “This is where we had our first kiss. Remember?” 

“I remember being so nervous I accidentally took all the water in the creek and brought it down on our heads.” And she sat beside Mavis, put her arm around her.

“Have I ever shown you this? My first-edition Issue #290. Cost me an arm and a leg.”

“She’s pretty,” said Victoria. “Reminds me of you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“But I have to go.”

“I know you do. But I can’t go with you.”

“Why not?” said Mavis, although she already knew the answer.

“I don’t have the same kind of fury you do,” she said, and lifted the tears away from Mavis’s cheek and flung them down into the rippling creek. “But let’s not talk about it right now.”

And all at once a thousand gallons of water landed on them both (severely damaging the resale value of Mavis’s comic in the process), and they spent the remainder of their final evening together completely soaked.

#

In the morning Mavis Davids, a.k.a., Telegra, announced her decision to the others, which caused a major fracture in the Storm Underground. Big Bend responded by pledging that he would come with her and offer his total support, as did Snakewhip. Blackstar, on the other hand, said he would rather stay behind (his family still needed him), which promised to make travel much more difficult. 

And Nyanza with her liquid eyes downcast said, “I guess that means you’ll have to leave right away….”

And Mavis kissed her forehead and whispered goodbye for the last time and the three of them started east. Gray and pregnant clouds were above them the whole journey, showering them first with rain and then with lightning.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: War crimes, very mild drug use

Once outside Circus bent low to the ground and threw up oily yellow bile. Sniffed at themselves: the scent of Taylor’s sweat, and here came more bile. The feeling of her still wrapped around their fingers. Maybe this was a Reaction. Maybe the naive utopianism Circus had been accused of too many times to count was coming ‘round to bite them in the ass, because certainly this was not paradise. This was suffering. Given every liberty and freedom they were due, and still there was this awful suffering, not from the exterior but from within, purely personal and purely human.

Pregnant clouds came over them now, gray and full and beginning to leak.  _ Crack!  _ went some lightning a few miles away. They crossed their arms across their chest and squirmed at their own touch and set off toward Imp and Regent. 

What they had done was done by Free Agreement. And inevitable, really, with all the stress that had built up around them like boiling water. Water — that’s what they needed, to wash away this sticky, cloying feeling. And then, thank god — drops of rain began to splatter against the dusty asphalt.

A few blocks down a woman with black hair tumbled face-down onto the street out of a tall brick building. Circus rushed over. She was pallid and sweating and now due to the fall bleeding from a cut on her forehead, saying, “Help. Please help!”

“What is it?”

“Kicking me out. He’s kicking me out.”

“Who is?”

But now out of the brick building came an answer: tall, leather-clad, grinning like Jack Torrence. He started toward the woman with his monstrous gait. Rain dripped on either side of his face, dribbled down from each mouth-corner like blood. Circus stood and got in his way and said, “You’re kicking her out? You know that’s not allowed anymore.”

The man said, “That bitch is too far gone. Can’t have her around much longer.”

And Circus looked again at the weeping woman and then back at the man and brought their knee into his pelvic bone. He grunted and fell to the ground and Circus was on him, more knees and then fists. Blood, real red blood, spurted out of him, out of his nostrils and mouth and from the impacts with the pavement. Red red red. That was all Circus saw. 

At some point they became aware of the woman trying to pull them back, her puny arms trying to get a grip around their wrists, failing, of course. How the abused will try to save their abuser. A shame. A real defect in the human psyche. Circus was past that. More fists. And then, standing, they stomped on the sobbing man’s left hand and then drew a throwing knife and pushed it through his right.

They stood and when they saw what they had done leaned to the side and retched again and turned and left them both there, screaming.

#

Meanwhile on the other side of the city in a backroom of a nice hotel, Legend was talking to the President of the United States of Earth Bet, who was smoking a Cuban cigar.

“Sir,” said Legend, dressed to the nines in his blue-white spandex. “We’re aware of what you might call a migration of various terrorist agents to the eastern half of Brockton Bay. We believe they mean to aid the Undersiders et al. with the defense of their so-called autonomous zone.”

“Hmm,” said the POTUSOAOEB, and tapped the ash from his cigar. “We have a real conundrum on our hands, don’t we, Keith? The kind of crisis you would’ve thought could only happen in a model UN club.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me tell you a story, Keith. You know, before I even ran for governor I was a military man. A war dog, you might say. I joined up after college, right as the Cold War was winding down. A lack of direction. Plus, that was where my father got his start. And at that age I could think of nothing else but my father. So I went and signed up and shipped out to boot camp. Got my head shaved, that kind of thing. I was eager to prove. Prove I wasn’t just a rich kid, you know?

“But so anyway the day I graduated boot camp, Saddam went into Kuwait. How serendipitous, I thought. A little later I was there in the desert. God it was hot. Dry, too, not to mention dusty. Still it felt great. Big huge gun in my hand, and my brothers all around me. This was what it was all about. Duty, honor, et cetera.

“Then one day my squad got called out to look through this town. A little village in the middle of nowhere. Someone said they’d seen Saddam’s guys go through there, and they sent us over there to see if there were any left, or if anyone saw which way they were headed. Nothing too serious. And sure enough, there wasn’t anything of note, although we scared the snot out of some of those goat-fuckers, ha ha ha.

“But then on our way back to the transport, I thought I saw some movement, maybe a hundred yards due south, where there was a sort of makeshift highway. So I stopped and took out my binoculars and, yes, over there were some guys. I couldn’t make out whether they were armed, or whose side they were on, but I raised my AR all the same, and then  _ bang bang bang _ . My teammates didn’t stop to ask me what I was doing, only raised their guns same as me and started blasting. I had only meant to scare them at first, but when I saw them running, I put my sights over their little brown heads. Want to know why, Keith? Victims. They were victims, had  _ made themselves  _ victims, and something about that fact made my blood boil like nothing else.

“Soon they were all dead, and we spent the rest of the day piling the bodies up and burning them. And then a few months later the ‘war’ was over — not exactly a fair fight, ha ha ha — and I was back States-side, and the Party was looking to run a guy with military experience, and I was young and — what can I say? — highly charismatic. And the rest is history.

“All of which is to say, Keith, what I want you and your comic-book pals to do is wipe those Red rat-bastards off the face of the fucking planet. It’s an election year coming up. Law and order. Get me?”

And he let his cigar drop to the floor and stamped on it.

#

Circus found Regent and Imp — or, just Regent? — in underwear, smoking something greenish and skunk-smelling. 

“Legal now, isn’t it?” said Regent, and cackled.

“Come on, get dressed,” said Circus. “An urgent meeting.”

And then they were on the road again, soon joined by little Imp in her devil-mask and bodysuit.

“So how’s it going, you know, with the transition?” asked Circus. 

“It’s going well,” said Imp. “Not much work for us anymore. Had to kick the shit out of a few landlords, but I wouldn’t call that work. Grue said you were working on the food situation?”

Circus shivered at hearing the name, picked semi-dried blood from under their fingernails. Then told the two about the factory and then about Tattletale and Taylor’s dad and then about Pierce and Miss Militia. 

“Always knew she was a fucking snake,” said Regent disinterestedly. 

“Jesus,” said Imp. “A lot’s been happening, huh? There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen.”

“Been doing some reading?” said Circus.

“Oh I’m all too familiar with history, Circ’. Specifically with its erasure. I’ve had a short attention span for as long as I can remember, but not so short that I can’t see the recycling, the repeating, the past made present. First as tragedy and then as farce. I’m sure you know all about farce, Circ’, getting dressed up like that everyday. Ha ha ha. I mean, for example, my last name belonged to some white family before it belonged to mine. So it’s like I don’t have a history. I am disconnected from the past. I am easily forgotten.”

And then she was gone. Had she been there in the first place?

“Don’t worry,” said Regent with a glaze over his eyes. “She’s always doing this.”

Fortunately Imp showed back up once they had arrived at the meeting place — where they had met, oh so long ago, to discuss Circus’s proposal. Bitch was here with big bony things nipping at her heels, as was Miss Militia, bone-sober by now, a snoring Kid Win behind her with a new pair of plastic handcuffs. And, shit, Grue as well, smoke around him like a contagion. Circus looked at him and swallowed hard, and their skin prickled with that same nauseating feeling, the memory of Taylor’s warmth. 

Speaking of which….

“Where’s Taylor?” said Grue to Circus in his empty timbre.

“I don’t know,” they said. “Last I saw her she was headed inside her old building.”

“You don’t think she…?” said Miss Militia.

“No,” said Circus — much too quickly.

“Fuck I should probably go check up on her,” said Grue, and he was out the door before anyone could tell him not to. Circus’s gut teemed with what felt like maggots.

Then, Imp: “Circ’, you okay? You look like someone put a bunch of spiders up your ass….”

“I’m fine,” said Circus. “I’m fine.”

Silence for the next few minutes. Imp came in and out their vision like the whole scene was a fever dream. Circus felt petty and animal and small. One of Bitch’s dogs started to hump against another, and Bitch yelled at it, and Circus shivered. 

Finally they couldn’t wait anymore, and they stood and said, “I should go after him. They might get attacked or something.”

And they dashed outside before anyone had the chance to offer their assistance. Outside the drizzle had turned to great glittering sideways sheets. When it rains it pours…. 

The water couldn’t penetrate Circus’s latex costume. They started off at a sprint back toward Taylor’s. Running around and around in an anxious circle, recycling and repeating, first as tragedy then as farce. In fact, that’s where their name came from: derived from the Latin for big ring.

A block away from their destination they fell into a gutter roaring with sewage-smelling water, but this was not a deterrent, and they stood soaked through to their skin and puked and kept going. They could feel it all falling apart at the seams. All their work and all their training and all their belief slipping into that torrent, dragged down into the bowels of the earth.

They stepped up to Taylor’s door but before they could get their fingers around the knob it swung open and here was Grue, somehow taller, half-hidden behind a wall of black gas. He put his hands on Circus’s shoulders, and they looked at him and said, “Grue….” Then he pushed them back down the steps and onto the slippery concrete. 

They somersaulted backward and sprung to their feet and said, “Grue, wait,” in a soft voice, meanwhile pulling from thin air a big stick. “Wait.”

“Circus,” said Grue with his voice amplified by the power swirling through the fog. “What have you done?”

“Let’s just talk. No need for violence, right?” yelled Circus over the patter of rain, and winced, for even now the hypocrisy was seeping through.

“I’m not so sure,” he growled. “I think—”

The interruption came from above and landed between the two with a crash like lightning. But it wasn’t lightning but a bomb (or something like it), and it sent Circus tumbling ragdoll through the air and —  _ thunk!  _ — into the side of the building across from Taylor’s and then to the hard ground, where they saw stars and then nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. if you like the superheroes + politics stuff check out the most recent addition to My (non-fan)Fiction series ;)


	17. Chapter 17

Here was Geraldo, alone in someone else’s apartment — Angel’s, to be specific. The day had gone by, disappeared into black by now, but he hadn’t left, only waited and waited for him to come back, which of course he hadn’t.

When Geraldo went without food for even a few hours (as he’d done today) the living flame within him began to sputter and wheeze, which left him shivering. He shivered in the stranger’s bed and worried. This was unlike him. Uncharacteristic, you might say. He wasn’t one to grow overly attached. But maybe Angel was different. 

And now Angel, lissome and winsome, ever the optimist — not to mention scorchingly hot — was gone.

Outside the window lay an apparatus of upheaval. Geraldo was all too aware of this fact. He’d participated firsthand in its functioning, had even, in fact, killed for it on more than one occasion. He was a sinner. He had the infernal flames within him as a constant reminder. His mother would not be proud if she were alive today. But it was all in service of a greater good. A world without violence was a fantasy. 

However, Geraldo was becoming increasingly convinced that perhaps some of that unavoidable violence had come back to take what it was due. An Angel tax.

Geraldo was only dimly aware of what Angel had been up to with the Party. They were in separate branches: Geraldo the militant, Angel the bureaucratic. But he knew it was something important. Something dangerous, and not danger in the sense Geraldo was used to, but a broader, chillier kind. And so if he was now missing, the odds that his “official duties” were involved were pretty high. Or at least this was the conclusion he’d come to in the dark apartment after hours and hours of anxious and recursive reasoning. 

Finally he wrapped himself in a blanket and called, (in Spanish): “Hey, Doc, it’s Geraldo. Just calling to let you know Angel Lacayo-Morales is … missing? I was supposed to see him today, and I can’t get in contact with him.”

(Doc was Dr. Alejandra Kuznetsov [a name which came as a result of a Nicaraguan mother and Russian father, FYI] who was for all intents and purposes Geraldo’s boss. Honorific due to a Ph. D., not an M.D.)

“Shit,” she answered. “Geraldo, look, I’d be lying to you if I said shit was not hitting the fan at the moment.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, perhaps it would suffice to say our Cold War is heating up — just a tad.”

“And Angel’s involved?”

“I’m afraid so. Earlier today we became aware of a trespass of US parahuman/military agents on Nicaraguan soil. We don’t know exactly what happened, but the result was the disappearance of Angel Lacayo-Morales and one Mr. Spleen. Their tracking chips indicate they are currently being detained somewhere in the Northeastern USA, which, if I were to hazard a guess, means they are in Brockton Bay. That was the situation ALM was involved with.”

“And what are we doing about it?”

“Probably nothing. At least nothing direct, if that’s what you’re asking. Not for the time being.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Geraldo, wait, you’re using a tone that’s making me worried you’re going to cause some sort of international—”

But Geraldo had hung up and was already in the process of consuming every foodstuff in Angel’s thrumming fridge in order to refuel his inner flame. Unaware to him, today marked the fifteenth anniversary of the birth of his faithful flame. The event that had precipitated the advent of his parahumanity was: when he was still a teenager, Geraldo had invited a boy named Diego-Antonio to his parents’ little home in Granada. During this visit, Geraldo at one point pulled Diego-Antonio into a little closet and put his mouth on his. This little tryst was interrupted, however, by Geraldo’s father, who opened the closet door and launched into a sort of berserker rage, at which point Geraldo saw sci-fi-type imagery and began to feel an unbearable burning all along the inside of his body, and when he could see again his father was dead, turned to a blackened corpse. 

Violence was inevitable. When you got hit, you hit back.

When it was strong enough, Geraldo stepped onto the cobbled Managua street and allowed his inner flame to propel him into the air, and then East, first over the Caribbean, and then Florida, etc. etc….

#

“Sorry,” said Brian. “Could you repeat that?”

And Taylor, crying now ( for the hundredth time that day, it felt like): “I slept with Circus. We had sex. Get it?”

Brian didn’t answer, instead let his breath grow heavy. His chest heaved up and down. He glared down at Taylor, and Taylor couldn’t glare back. Everyone was gone. All this collectivism was blowing up in her face. Where was the solidarity? The only thing linking her with anyone else was the pain inherent to the human experience. Perhaps that had always been true….

Then Brian turned on his heels and started back down the staircase with big stomping steps. Taylor was paralyzed for a moment until she realized what Brian likely intended to do, at which point she finished donning her stinking costume and mask and started after him. Down to the front door of her building, found it blocked by Brian and a wall of his smog. Then the sound of someone falling and then barking back at Grue. Circus?

Taylor lunged forward and was about to put her hands on Grue when _blam!_ A shockwave shoved him and Taylor backward, and he landed on top of her, crushed her. A crunching sound and then the noise of debris falling on asphalt. Or at least this was the best she could make out over the ringing in her ears. A ringing like the squeals of a million children. An excruciating pain, too, ripping down the right side of her torso. 

“Grue! Grue!” But he didn’t answer. And so she shoved him off her and stood despite the blinding agony and propped him up against a wall now coated with plaster-dust. She went outside and looked up: there was something — some _one_ — in the sky. She couldn’t make them out, and they were flying faster than any bugs could. A huge crater in the center of the street, bits of asphalt poked up around it like teeth. And there on the far sidewalk was Circus, writhing and coated in water and grime. Skitter clutched her side and ran through the sheets and sheets of rain toward them.

“Circus?”

“Urgh.”

“Circus what happened? Was that you?”

“I don’t know — _agh_ — I don’t know. Oh god it hurts.”

“Here, hold on to me,” said Taylor, and gingerly pulled Circus to their feet and then into the building whose facade had been smashed to bits. From outside there was another sound like a meteorite crash. Circus was bleeding from the nostrils and the ears and their left leg bent at an odd angle.

“Shit shit shit,” said Taylor. “Circus, shit, stay here. I’ll go get help.”

And Circus made a sort of whimper/yelp and as Taylor stood they grabbed her by the sleeve and said through gritted teeth, “Taylor. Taylor, this is the Reaction. Careful. Be very careful. I don’t want you to die….” And then the pain caught up with them and they slumped to the stone floor.

And Taylor stood and it was back out into the downpour. Nigh on impossible to effectively maintain a swarm in a storm like this. The _kraak!_ of lightning, followed by another concussive explosion, maybe a block north. The adrenaline was at last beginning to wick away some of the pain in her side, but still she could hear nothing but the whines and the splatter of water against concrete.

She limped one two three blocks toward what remained of her allies. The streets were empty, completely empty. Where had they all gone? All gone. Then she turned a corner and stepped back: on the long wide street which ran from downtown through to the Bay itself was a legion of black-clad law-enforcement officers. They wore long inky raincoats that may as well have had SS emblazoned on the arm. They were singing, to the tune of Dead Kennedys’ “Kill the Poor”:

**Storm Troopers’ Song**

Efficiency and progress is ours once more

Now that we have the Trium-vi-rate

They’re fast and strong and always get things done

Away with super-villainy

And no less value to figurines

Too strong for thieves but great ‘gainst parahumans 

[Here a sort of drumroll produced by banging their batons against their riot-shields.]

The rain beats down on Brockton Bay

No chance for th’Undersiders today

Grue, Skitter, and Bitch caught in Legend’s beam

Hear Imp and Regent scream

All their henchmen whisked away

All support to the Triumvirate to- _night_

Gonna

Kill kill kill the villains 

Kill kill kill the villains

Kill kill kill the villains

Toni-i-i-i-ght!

Skitter listened to this while gathering what bugs she could, all of them made drowsy by sleepy white noise. When she had made her own black cloud of dripping mosquitoes and wasps and placed it above the cops, she turned back around the corner to face them. But they were already engaged in fighting some invisible threat. 

A monstrous vine had ripped through the asphalt and wrapped around the neck of an obese one and held him aloft, kicking and screaming. Then another, brandishing a baton and a riot shield, began to glow red. Red enough Taylor could see him clearly through the weather. He squealed and squealed until finally there was a sort of _pop!_ and he exploded into steaming gore, a chunk of which landed at Taylor’s feet. 

The cops now began to scatter, but out of stage left came an enormous man dressed in a white undershirt made sheer with wetness, and he charged bull-like through the mass of them, sent them flying like so many bowling-pins. Taylor let her bugs fall on the one or two remaining, and soon they were incapacitated as well.

“Skitter?” called a stranger’s voice. The enormous man pointed at her, and out of the defunct bodega on the corner came two women. The three of them started toward her, and she stepped into a defensive stance, but one of the women — black with an afro whose shape had been affected negatively by the rain — held up her hands to indicate she was no threat. 

“Skitter, hey, we’re here to help,” she said, and went forward to shake Taylor’s hand, and by now she was too numb to deny her. “My name’s Telegra. Big fan of what you’ve got going on here.”

“I’ve never heard of you?”

“We’re sort of Underground,” said Telegra, and cackled. “My companions and I represent roughly one half of the Storm Underground, a leftist parahuman organization located in the Midwest. This is Big Ben and this is Snakewhip. We’ve come to help. To fight.” 

More handshaking.

Taylor said, “Storm, like the X-Woman?”

“I think we’re going to get along,” said Telegra. 

“Leftist parahuman organization? I’ve never heard of that, either.”

“There’s plenty of us,” said Big Bend, whose voice was low and steely. “I know there’s one around the Dakotas. A few in the Pacific Northwest, and one big one down in LA. We don’t get a lot of coverage.”

And then there was another one of those mysterious explosions, which made them all wince, and Taylor said, “One of those blasts hit two of my teammates. Can any of you heal or something?”

“A little bit,” said Snakewhip, who was small and bald. “Where are they?” And Taylor told her, and she went jogging off back that way. 

“My teammates are a few blocks ahead,” said Taylor.

“We’ll come with you,” said Telegra. 

And the trio set off, stepping over the either dead or snoozing pigs prone on the street. Taylor had no option but to trust them, although her capacity for trust was at an all time low. The back of her neck tingled as if someone was watching her from above. And indeed someone was.

  
  
  
  



	18. Chapter 18

Circus drifted in and out of consciousness. The worm’s-eye view of the interior of a strange dusty building faded and finally gave way to dopey fever dreams — and then back again. Every lucid moment was defined by bright white agony. Everywhere hurt: their head, legs, hands, heart.

Where had it all gone wrong?

In their dreams they were scrambling up the side of a sheer cliff. At the top, they knew, it was something like paradise, but there were no ledges and Circus only had their bare hands. Their nails were gone entirely, turned to bloody claws. And it hurt so much. So why? Why, indeed….

Then back in reality it was another kind of pain. Physical, sure, but also the hurt of having led innocents astray. Having indulged selfish desires. Taylor, beautiful Taylor, had become another victim, and it was all their fault. Some part of Circus must have always known this would happen. So why why why?

Presently a figure came into their drowsy view. An angel of death, perhaps? No — a stranger, bald and costumed. They knelt down beside Circus, said, “Hey, I’m here to help. Stay still.”

“Who are…?” went Circus, but the stranger — a young woman — shushed them. She did something strange with her hands and then out of the concrete floor came little green plants. When finished growing she plucked the leaves from them and began to lay them across Circus’s leg, face, nostrils, and the pain lessened somewhat. 

“Where’s your teammate?” she said.

“Huh?” said Circus groggily.

“Skitter said there were—”

Something big and fast interrupted her, sent her flying out of Circus’s periphery. They couldn’t turn their head to look, but this is what they heard: a thump and then a crack like twigs snapping and then a wet sound and then another thump, which wasn’t especially encouraging. Then footsteps, new footsteps, coming back toward them.

They willed their legs to move, failed, then dipped their hand into their pocket dimension, but a boot on their forearm prevented the drawing of a weapon and made them scream. 

“Hey, Circus,” said someone familiar. Looking up, oh god—

“Alexandria —  _ aaagh!  _ — what are you doing here?”

“Haven’t you heard? You all have been declared a Class S threat.”

“S, huh? By who?”

“By  _ whom _ . Us, Them, the State. You know. The usual.”

“Isn’t that designation —  _ goddamnthatreallyfuckinghurts  _ — you know, um, reserved for people who are actually causing like damage?”

“You think you aren’t? A whole factory, Circus. You people took over a whole goddamn factory. Or something. I didn’t read the whole report. But that’s a lot of revenue. You thought you could just take a whole chunk out of the economy without some fucking repercussions?”

“You killed more people in the last minute than I have in my whole life.”

“I’m a  _ Good Guy _ , Circus. And you’re a  _ Bad Guy _ . What’s so difficult to understand about that? Plus, if a few people have to die to keep the cash flowing, well, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?”

“You’re fucking disgusting.”

“Disgusting? Come on, Circus, where’s the irony? Where’s your sense of humor?” — here she took the foot that was not on Circus’s arm and kicked them in the crotch with just a tiny boost from her superstrength — “I don’t think I’m disgusting. Look at me. I am tall and strong and beautiful. Technically I’m the most powerful woman of color on the planet. I thought you supported progress.”

“ _ Aaagggh! _ ”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve made some mistakes. But haven’t we all? At least I’m trying, you know? I love my country. I’ve always loved my country. And I’ve been granted all this power, and although I’ve had some what you might call shady dealings with people, everything I’ve done has been in support of the ideals I believe in. Democracy, freedom, et cetera. Look at me — I’m monologuing like a real villain, huh? I guess I’d better get back to fighting the good fight.”

“Alexandria, wait—!”

But Alexandria cut Circus off by putting her bulky black boot on their neck and chuckling a little before stomping with all her superstrength, which made a sort of squishing noise and sent Circus’s head rolling….

#

Meanwhile Taylor and Telegra and Big Bend jogged through the relentless rain. In the distance were those seemingly sourceless explosions.  _ This is the Reaction…. _

Her bugs alerted her to the fact that the chaos was widespread. Everywhere people — her people — were being flung from their residences and handcuffed by the same sort of black-clad ID-less troops they’d recently done away with. There were so many of them. Betrayal upon betrayal upon betrayal. Somewhere Lisa was sitting in a warm shelter, perhaps sipping some decaf tea while watching her father, her poor innocent father, be torn to shreds by god knew what sort of Tinker-born torture devices.

Thank god — here came Regent and Imp(?) and Miss Militia and Bitch bounding toward her and the others, followed by tall mutant beasts (the sight of which seemed to stun Big Bend for a second and delight Telegra).

Bitch, bounding up to her: “Skitter, what the fuck’s going on? We heard explosions? Who the hell are these people?”

Skitter: “I don’t know what’s going on.”

And then there were some more introductions and handshakes. MM said, “I think I remember hearing about you all, many years ago.”

“All good things, I hope,” said Telegra. 

“Not exactly,” said MM. And then she looked down at the wet street and said, “Kid Win is dead.”

“What?” said Skitter, and she remembered the wasps around his head and the EpiPen in his leg ($600 wasted, apparently).

“His breathing just sort of stopped,” said MM. “An allergy thing, maybe. I blame myself. Is that what this is all about? A retaliation? A Reaction?”

“I really don’t know,” said Skitter, and bit back more treacherous tears. “I really don’t.”

Any sort of self-pity, however, would have to wait because now out of the gray-black clouds came a helicopterish thing painted that distinctive Dragon-green, and then, Jesus, to round out the color palette with his green cape was Eidolon, and behind him Legend. Taylor had come to expect a certain amount of “escalation” but wasn’t this pushing it just a bit? As if they weren’t young adults but a gaggle of newly formed Endbringers. 

The Undersiders et al. assumed defensive positions. The enormous hounds licked their chops. MM had in her hands now something like an RPG. 

Out of the helicopter thing came a synthesized voice: “You all, down there, please lay down your arms, return your animals to a more manageable size, and come quietly with us. Else there shall be violence.”

Taylor was beginning to suspect that the highest odds for their survival would be to run away, but a glance to her left and right revealed the impossibility of such an option. At either end of the street were now tall sparking walls of electric netting. She attempted to get her bugs through the little openings, but evidently Dragon had accounted for that. Not even the littlest gnat could get out — or in. They were like fish in a barrel. Fish. All this over fucking fish.

Legend was first to break the tension.  _ Zap!  _ A smoking yellowish bolt came down from the air like something divine, down into the middle of Big Bend, who screamed for just an instant before the beam got through his face, down through the center of his ribcage, and out through between his legs. He fell to the ground in two symmetrical cauterized pieces. Big Bend had been bisected. 

“Whoops,” went Legend. Eidolon chuckled through his faceplate.

Telegra let go a raw scream and put into the air a sparking bubble of energy, which did in fact collide with the helicopter but did little to no damage. Taking this as a cue Double-Em pulled the trigger and there was a whistling noise as the rocket shot through the wet air — only to be detonated prematurely by some kind of anti-air projectile that came from the turrets affixed to the helicopter.

After this it became difficult to put things in order. 

Taylor tumbled into the corner of the arena they’d been trapped in. Really this was not an environment that allowed her combat abilities to shine. Close quarters combat. She had a frankly negligible amount of bugs. Sent a cloud of ‘em over to try and distract the Legend himself, but soon they’d all been zapped. Shit shit shit.

At some point one of Bitch’s dogs — a big one, too — leapt up to try and grab Eidolon like a frisbee, but a beam went between its enormous milky yellow eyes, and it dropped like a boulder into the center of the street, made a big ol’ canine crater. Bitch howled. A cop’s primary function was to kill dogs, after all….

How to do away with these electric net things? Taylor crouched low to the ground and duckwalked over to get as close as she dared. Hmm, let’s see, on either side were these like pylons — was that where the power was coming from? 

Above her: Imp blurred back into view now airborne, now with one of those huge kitchen knives in her hand glittering with rain, lunging for the back of Eidolon’s neck. And — yes! — she got him, plunged the blade into him through a chink in his armor, and he yelped in pain. But Imp wasn’t quick enough in returning to her unmemorable state and Eidolon had time to perform a sort of burst, which engulfed Imp in an otherworldly flame. Taylor saw the outline of Imp’s still childlike skeleton, and then saw her lImp body tumble to the ground.

Regent screamed at the sight and rolled out the way of an incoming beam, and before Legend could get off another his arm jerked to the left and sent the energy toward the helicopter, clipped it, sparks, fire, etc.

Here was a chance. Taylor hollered, “Telegra! Telegra, over here!”

Telegra turned to look. Taylor was gesturing wildly at the pylons, and Mavis Davids’s combat sense was such that it took her only a microsecond the get the gist, and here came a sparking electro-magnetic ball over to collide with the base of the Dragon-made device, and — thank god! — that seemed to do the trick. The electric netting flickered and disappeared. Who knew for how long, though, and so Skitter called frantically for the others to follow her through the gateway, out into the open. 

Here they came, double-file, MM and Telegra and Bitch and her dogs trotting two-by-two like they were in some biblical fable and finally Regent with a crack in his perennially plastic expression. He was just a foot too slow, however, and the fence switched back on and his left ankle got caught, and there was a slicing sound and then another scream. Skitter put her arm around his shoulder and helped him to hop forward, but that was much too slow, and the Duumvirate and their familiar had by now recovered and were lining up the sights for their next blast, Taylor could feel—

There was a noise like  _ Whoomph!  _ from behind her and she turned and saw their persecutors engulfed in flame. And now there was a fourth figure in the sky — a stranger to Taylor — but surely, reader, you know who it was. Deus ex Geraldo. 

This distraction was enough for the rest of them to limp to a run-down townhouse a hundred yards away, in through the cracked screen door. Taylor let Regent flop to the dusty wood floor. “Ohjesusfuckingchristithurts,” he said. At least there wasn’t any blood coming from the wound — only a boneblack scorch mark. 

Our heroes’ chances for survival, on the other hand, were bleeding out so quickly not even a flaming tourniquet could stop the flow….


	19. Chapter 19

I am running. My feet slap against the wet concrete, and behind me are the foot-slaps of my teammates — what remains of them, anyway. Above me are the zaps and blasts of parahuman combat. Explosions, electricity, extradimensional energy, etc. I’m trying to wrap my bugs around the situation, but there are so many moving parts, so many variables, and all I can see in the end is that we are failing.

Any attempt to see the shape of our savior — the fire guy — is frustrated by blasts of sci-fi Raid from Eidolon. The only indication that he’s even there is the odd lighting change. Black to burnt orange and back to black. And eventually that stops altogether and I know there’s no barrier between our pursuers and us anymore.

One-footed Regent is being helped along by MM, whose green smoke is currently in the shape of a dolphin-looking unmanned drone, zipping around the action, itching to dump its payload. Bitch is atop one of her dogs now, but I’m worried this makes her a larger target, and so I decline her offer to hop up onto the other one. I am borne solely by my own two legs. My legs at the moment are the only things keeping me from martyrdom. 

Speaking of which in the corner of my eye I spot the neon-yellow beam from Legend’s palm cutting through Regent’s chest. Miss Militia makes the kind of decision only soldiers can and lets his unwhole corpse fall to the asphalt and now without the extra weight she sprints up to me. Our only chance now is to run. That’s the only way we can survive. Coming up is a dead end, however, and so we’ll have to make a turn, and like a migrating monarch butterfly I can think of nothing but returning to comfort, and so I direct the still-living left, toward the building Coil gave me what feels like a century ago. Always left. Through a crushing alleyway. 

Bitch goes, “My dogs can’t get through!” 

I go, “What do you want me to do about it?”

We’re dealing here with the A-Team. These are the most powerful people on the planet and we stand no chance against them. What have I done to deserve this? Picking us off one by one as if we are mere pests. As if we are vermin. There’s no chance, as there might’ve been in a similarly lethal circumstance, of some divine (read: Scionic) intervention. No, we are on the side of the devils, and in the end that means we are fit to die — there will be no eulogies for my fallen comrades, there will not even be a debate over whether or not our death was justified on MSNBC. Maybe some magazine with a circulation so small as to be practically nonexistent will run an article on us, lumped in with the other tales of innocent children destroyed by the iron fist of the US and her strong and beautiful supporters. Martyrdom is overrated. You can’t change anything from beyond the grave.

Eidolon is above us now, blocked widescreen by the buildings on either end of the alley. He’s chuckling. He could blow us all to smithereens right this very moment if he was so inclined. But he’s not. That would spoil the fun, wouldn’t it? He performs a sort of flourish with his hands and now in front of us is a matte-black oval — a portal straight out of a Looney Tunes episode. Behind us Dragon’s helicopter has morphed in a similarly Saturday morning cartoon style into a kind of mech and is guarding the only other exit. There’s no way but forward, and so I lead my bleeding team (sans the two doomed dogs) into the Ellipse of Uncertainty, and at once I am overcome with darkness. 

It’s a feeling not dissimilar to when I was inside Echidna. Sticky and dreamy and black black black. I am alone now, too. There is none of the gray light of the previous scene, only a snow globe sphere of onyx glass all around me. No stars, no liquid, only black. There is solid ground, though, and I start walking, jogging, sprinting, as if it were any other day. My higher cognitive functions have gone.

Soon I am accosted by — my father? This is some kind of PsyOp I’m sure. This is some Eidolon-Labs innovation designed to sap away the crumb of morale I’ve got left. Still I can’t help but be affected viscerally by the sight of him. He’s dressed in his stevedore’s uniform and is dripping with sweat. I nearly break down in tears right there, onto the inky floor. But I’m so close now — I can’t give up. We’re coming up to some kind of conclusion, I can feel it.

“Taylor?” he says in a spectral moan. “Taylor, is that you?”

“It’s me, Dad. Yes, it’s me.”  
“Taylor, I’m in so much pain. And that’s putting it mildly,” — even in this oneiric state he retains his humor — “They told me all about you, Taylor. They told me what you were up to when you ran away? A supervillain, Taylor? I thought I taught you better than that…. And now I’m in so so so much pain. Tortures you’ve never heard of. It’s all your fault. Your mother is rolling in her grave.”

Jesus where did the subtlety go, Dad? He vanishes back into the darkness, and the resulting ectoplasm gets in my eyes. It’s true, I know it’s all true. But it’s unimportant now. This is all by design. They want me to repent in my final moments. They want me to go to the crucifix quietly. But they’ll never take me alive — I’ve got too much pride. If this gauntlet is what it takes to cling to life even a second longer I’ll go through it skipping. 

Oh jeez — next up it’s Circus. They blur into frame, and it’s as though they’ve been melded with their red harlequin’s costume. The latex mask has become a part of their skull, their feet replaced by jangling crimson boots. 

“Woooaaah,” perhaps playing up the ghostliness, “Taylor I want you. All this has been to get to you, get to your body. You know that, don’t you?”

Is this coming from Big E’s intel files, or is it merely my scattered subconscious projected outwards?

“All this revolutionary rhetoric,” continues ghost-Circus, “all this talk of helping the disadvantaged, it was all part of my scheme to get at those mosquito bites of yours, Taylor — wooaah. All your dead friends, that’s all they died for. And I’m not even sure it was worth it.”

And there’s another explosion of green-white goo that dissipates into the nighttime blackness all around me. It’s not real, it’s not true, it’s designed to make me give up. All of it is. The disaffected workers, the suicide-inducing tales of brutal reality — it’s purpose is to put you in the mood for acquiescence. I see it now, here in the dark. I see, too, the little pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel, and my pace picks up again.

Finally here’s — who is this? It seems to be a number of people in one, stitched together at odd angles, extra limbs here and there, way too many eyes. The head appears mostly to be Coil’s, his black and white spandex woven through his cheeks and mouth and teeth. Lisa’s eyes. The torso’s made from Armsmaster’s old body-armor. Left arm is Sophia’s, right arm is Emma’s. And I’ve seen those hose-covered legs and the cheap-looking black heels before, haven’t I? Oh, yes — that’s a deep cut. They belong to that woman who acted as mediator between me and Emma that time I smacked her around, remember that?

This many-limbed monster doesn’t say anything, simply looms. Oddly this is the closest I’ve come to giving up. I’m not terrified exactly, more like defeated. The sight of so much authority blots out the little speckle of light. But I’m soon past it all, literally and figuratively, and out, finally out from inside the wombish dimension of Eidolon’s design.

But this isn’t much better.

Where I am now I’ve been before many times. My old lobby. I remember coming here the instant Coil’s people confirmed it was all mine. At the time it meant I was free. Free from reliance on others. How silly I had been. How silly all this still is. Nothing is mine. Nothing is anyone’s.

At my feet is Brian. He’s been scalped. There’s a plait of blood and gore where his napped up hair might’ve been before. And, oh, through a plate-sized whole in his chest I can see the floor. All that for nothing. I fall to my knees. Twisting my head I see he’s not the only one. The bodies of everyone on our side have been arranged ritualistically in a circle around me. Here’s Circus without a head. Here’s ol’ Double-Em with her throat slit. Here’s Bitch with huge bite marks in her side. And Imp, too, totally charred, with her hand wound through Regent’s own chest-hole. Big Bend has been sewn back together, and his body is the keystone. Where’s Telegra?

Before I have time to weep there’s a hand on my shoulder. I whip around, propelled at this point entirely by adrenaline, and it’s Alexandria with rays of sun marking the border of her perfect body. The sun is out again, finally. I would’ve thought I was still dreaming if not for the smell….

“What’s up, Taylor?” she says, and grins down at me.

“Why…?” is all I can manage.

Presently my old idol is joined on either side by her perennial companions. No-mouth Eidolon and Wheaties-box Legend.

“Why?” says Alexandria. “Why, you ask? Hmm, that’s a toughie. I suppose the reason for all these bodies is the same reason I know your real name, Taylor. We’ve gotta keep things in order, don’t we? We’ve gotta keep this beautiful city from descending into anarchy.”

“That wouldn’t be good for anyone,” say Eidolon and Legend in eerie unison.

“That’s right,” continues Alexandria, “What do you think it is we do here, anyway? Fight crime? Fight the Endbringers? All that is totally secondary. You wanna know who my boss is, Taylor? Because I do have a boss. Everyone does. My boss is this accountant, hidden away in another dimension. I do what will make the numbers on his screen get bigger. It’s important for reasons I can’t get into right now. And you all’s little revolutionary experiment — to put it very, very generously — was getting in the way of that. So we had to make an example out of you.”

I’m thinking — sluggishly — about whether or not there’s anything I can do. Wreak havoc in Alexandria’s respiratory system? Somehow induce Legend to blow his own teammates away? No, it’s just not possible. And there aren’t even any bugs around. Without others I am weak. Everyone is.

Alexandria’s still going: “That’s what this is all about. We’re all just working for someone else. We’re all just filling someone else’s pocket. And it  _ has  _ to be that way. We are our own people. We are individuals. We are free. Anyone who dares interfere has to be done away with — violently. And — shit, I’ve gotta quit monologuing. We need to finish the sacrifice.”

Then, Eidolon: “Don’t we normally sacrifice virgins? Ha ha ha. Alright, Taylor, well, if you’ve gotta go let me give you a little glimpse of the truth.” And he unstraps his armor with the outline of abs carved into it and lets his stomach flop out. “Really,” he says, “I’ve been a fatass this whole time.” And he cackles and raises his arm and puts a bolt into my brain, and I am rising up up up and I can see everything all at once — the locker, the first time with Brian, the first time with Circus, Lisa, Mom, the crash, too many dead bugs to count — and I rise rise rise until finally I am inside the great oblivion of whatever’s next….


	20. Chapter 20

Lisa watched the night’s debate with Danny at her side. Danny had been sliding in and out of consciousness for several hours now. An effect of the sodium amytal as well as the hours of superpower-enhanced interrogation. The lower half of his face was coated in red as though he were on his way to attend a masquerade. “Elurr,” he said, and slumped over again. Lisa looked back up at the little boxy TV she’d brought into the interrogation room. Only three on the stage, this being the final televised debate before Super Tuesday. 

The incumbent, the POTUSOAOEB, stood in the center, dwarfing his opponents. Currently the woman on the left was speaking. Her name was Dakota Carligossi, and if elected she would be not only the first woman in the oval office but the first person of color. In addition to that, she would be the first  _ parahuman.  _ That’s right, Dakota Carligossi had another name: Mrs. Paperclip (perhaps somewhat of a tasteless reference to the US post-war operation that brought Nazi rocket-scientists into government agencies such as NASA). She was a Tinker, and specialized in what her cape-name would imply. 

At the moment she was saying, “...When I was a young woman coming to grips with my new superpowers — recall, I had experienced my trigger event when my father became a victim of gun violence — I was convinced that the right place for parahumans in the context of the US Government was as defenders. But the events of the past few years, some of which, certainly, have been caused by the man standing to my right, I have reached a more nuanced understanding. I have come to the realization that the network of federally employed parahumans must focus, in this moment, on  _ offense _ . Many of my colleagues in the Senate — on both sides of the aisle — agree. Mr. President, you have been much,  _ much  _ too stingy with the deployment of these super-troops of ours.”

Wild applause from an invisible audience.

The mediator, Buzz Plum, said, “Thank you, Senator Carligossi. Follow-up question: how do you respond to the recent Atlantic article that claims you were lying about your trigger event? That it was not brought about by gun violence but by an incident involving your role in the death of your sister?”

“Falsehoods,” said Mrs. Carligossi. “All, all falsehoods. In fact if you consult the case files you’ll find—”

“Thank you,” said Buzz Plum, “your time is up. Mr. President since your name was mentioned I’ll give you thirty seconds to respond.”

“Thanks, Buzz,” said the POTUSOAOEB, “I’ll begin by countering the outrageous claim that I have been at all ‘stingy’ with my use of parahuman troops in military operations. In actual fact, just yesterday I deployed our very own Triumvirate, those patriotic heroes we’ve all come to know in this post-Scion world of ours, to the eastern sector of Brockton Bay, where, as you well know, Buzz, dangerous terrorists had taken the civilian population — not to mention local businesses — hostage. I’m quite happy to inform you that in the span of twelve hours the threats had been eliminated  _ in toto _ , and the city returned to normalcy — in thanks, partially, to the Leviathan relief fund I signed into effect.”

Lisa widened her eyes and stood up and switched off the TV with a noise like a robot dying. She’d been in the local PRT building since she called Taylor, watching the festivities (i.e., the torture). Sure, she’d noticed the dispatchment of the Triumvirate and others, but  _ eliminated…? _ Just what did the POTUSOAOEB mean by that? Something like liquid nitrogen sunk through her chest, into her intestinal tract. 

Danny grunted. Lisa went over to him, undid the leather straps around his wrist, slapped him a few times across the cheek. “Danny — Danny wake up.”

“W-what is— Oh God, please, please.”

“Listen to me for a second. I’m going out for a bit. I removed your restraints, and there’s a water-cooler in the next room if you’re thirsty. But Alexandria will be back soon, I think, so get back in your seat before she sees you up and about.”

She turned to leave but Danny grabbed her by the tail of her PRT-issue sweater. “Lisa,” he said. “That’s right — I remember you. You were there. I r-remember. That’s right. You bitch. You coward. You traitor. You bitch.”

“I’m sure,” said Lisa, “I have no idea what you mean.” And with that left. Her power told her Danny did not have the energy to stand, let alone make it to the water-cooler. Yet freeing his hands still felt like a kindness, and Lisa needed all the good karma she could get. Out the back door, through the alleyway, out onto Lafayette St. Technically this wasn’t allowed, but what was she supposed to do? There was talk of shipping her off, in the morning, to some Langley facility for Thinkers in the CIA, so this was to be her last chance to see her old friends, her old comrades, even if it would be in their “eliminated” state. She knew the fastest route without research.

The look on ol’ Danny Hebert’s face when Alexandria informed him of his daughter’s true identity stuck in her mind. His doe’s eyes like saucers, his mouth, already producing blood, pulling open like a sphincter. That was the first time Lisa had felt guilt over what she’d done. Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true, but it was indeed the first time she’d used that word in her head. His whole world changed, and then had been yanked away again by Alexandria and her steel fingers and Eidolon with his deviant mind. God, what they’d done to his left nipple alone…. And all for what essentially amounted to a few childhood stories about the bug-queen herself.

Lisa had watched on in impotent horror, all the while considering: why? Why had she gone all Benedict Arnold in the first place? It struck her as impulsive, out of character, even. Certainly there had been impulsivity involved. Maybe there was also a voice in the back of her skull going: the White Hats will give you all the Vicodin you could possibly want. Maybe that was only a scapegoat.

Addiction, though, was central to the whole problem, she was sure. As a kind of dope-sickness came over her now, running through the wet streets like an ant in a little boy’s farm, she realized it was true: she was addicted. To what? That was a trickier query. Comfort, perhaps. A material safety, a position of omniscience — that was what she was after.

Or maybe, just maybe, her feelings w/r/t Taylor Hebert had factored more into her decision than she wanted to admit….

Speaking of which, she presently came upon Taylor’s old building. The blocky, brutalist construction surrounded now on all sides with neon-yellow police-tape. Her power told her the way past the barriers, the Aryan-looking officers all around the scene like corpse-flies. Through the back entrance, around through the skinny corridors to the lobby, and — Jesus, oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Lisa’s eyes stung first with the stench and then with tears. She dashed over to the black-red-yellow mess of them all. Oh god oh god oh god. Here was Taylor in the exact center, a silver-dollar-sized hole through her cranium, eyes still open, maggots — so many of them, too, Chrissake, you could fucking  _ hear  _ them,  _ squishsquishsquish _ — crawling through every part of her, perhaps responding to some posthumous burst of her power. A-and it was  _ all  _ of them. Every member of her true family, turned to viscera, playthings of the demigods here on Earth, and it was all, all her fault. She fell to her knees, then to all fours, retched from the smell, and cried and cried and cried.

“Hey,” came a voice from behind her, “Hey, you — I  _ know  _ you, don’t I?” Lisa turned to look. Who was this? A woman, shortish, black, afroed. Her power gave her some vague inklings, too: parahuman, radical, quite hostile.

“Yeah,” went the woman. “I’ve seen your photo on the news before. You’re — wait, shit, you’re fucking, oh no….”

Lisa’s power was telling her: run, run, run now! But she merely held up her hand, fingers ice-cold from withdrawal, and said, “Wait.”

But Mavis Davids did not, in fact, wait. She held up her own hands and a queer feeling came over Lisa. She tried to stand but couldn’t. Paralyzed. Telegra willed Lisa’s muscles to stand, and they did, she did, and her arms went outward, rigid and buzzing with energy, so that her pose resembled that of Jesus on the cross. 

“You,” said Telegra, “are responsible for all this, aren’t you, Snitch-girl? That’s your name, isn’t it?”

Lisa tried to shake her head (to both questions) but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move anything except her mouth, so she said, “N-no,” in a weaselly little voice.

“The girl, Imp, she told me what you did. You fucking turncoat little cunt!” And she did something that made Lisa scream with pain. Still, the electro-magnetic-whatever-it-was didn’t interfere with her power, and it was already at work coming up with a sufficiently cutting response.

“Tell me,” said Telegra. “Tell me why. Right now, or I’ll bend your fucking arms back, then make you do disgusting things with them.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Lisa. “I’ll tell you why. Oh, this should excite you, you goddamn [queer woman]. You really want to know? I did it for love. Yeah, that’s right. I loved my friends, my beautiful friends that were really more like family, way too much to let them become — become whatever it was that fucking clown wanted them to.”

“Oh yeah, does this look like love?” and she made Lisa turn around to look at the already rotting meaty mess of these people, some familiar, others strangers, but all still so visibly scared, visibly human. 

“It’s a lot lovelier,” yelling now, “than whatever you wanted, Telegra. Violence — you were  _ looking  _ for violence, isn’t that right? You fancy yourself a member of the Revolutionary Elite. That is to say, you fancy yourself better than everyone else. Yeah, it’s you, it’s gotta be you to put the masses in their infantile, imbecile place. You’re no better than the so-called fascists you claim you wanna go all 1936 on. That’s why — you ready for this? — that’s why that girl back home isn’t gonna be there when you get back. She sees it in you. She smells it on you. You know she does.”

Telegra’s mouth had turned into an upturned plum, and instead of responding she simply spat on the hardwood floor and left without undoing the electric paralysis. Lisa was stuck in her crucificial position, stuck in a state of living rigor mortis, stuck staring down at her steadily blackening teammates. Soon, gratefully, a state of feverish slumber came over her.

In her dreams Lisa was in a cafe of some kind. The place was decked out in Seventies-style retro futuristic decor. She sat in a booth, and across from her was one Taylor Hebert, dressed in the clothing they had bought together, all those millenia ago. Yet her face was somehow changed, as though she’d gotten cosmetic surgery to closer resemble one of those little gray aliens you were always seeing in the movies. She was happy — they were both happy. “C’mere, Lisa.” And she did. Then dream-Taylor unbuttoned her blouse and unclipped her bra (incidentally, her breasts were much bigger here than in real life), and grabbed Lisa by the face and brought her mouth to a plate-sized brown nipple, and Lisa, by reflex, began to suckle. The liquid tasted more like molasses than milk, and it had a narcotic effect, a feeling akin to the warm, sleepy one she associated with her Vicodin. “Yes,” said dream-Taylor. “Just like that. You know, I love you. I love you as a mother loves her little baby daughter. I always have. Just a little more nourishment, honey, yeah, that’s right, that’s right….”


	21. Epilogue: From the Blog of Mickey B. Proud

**In Defense of the Brockton Bay Autonomous Zone, or, Why it Had to be Skitter**

By Mickey B. Proud

The Empire is dying. The planet is dying. People are dying. These are the circumstances under which the BBAZ was formed. Sources differ on the life span of the Zone, but the consensus seems to be: not very long at all. In those months or weeks or days it lasted, though, controversy the likes of which the American Left has never seen spread throughout the nation. 

While liberals and conservatives seemed to agree on the solution to the “problem” — kill all those responsible without a trial — reactions among different sects of Leftism differed wildly. On one side here were MLs (for the blissfully uninitiated, Marxist-Leninists) proclaiming loudly and smugly on Twitter and PHO that they just _knew_ that this little “experiment” would end inevitably in a State-sponsored massacre — all this in a tone that implied they had no sympathy whatsoever for the victims of said massacre. Whereas on the other end, the so-called Anarchists, libertarian socialists, etc., voice tepid support for the Undersiders and their (still somewhat mystifying) decision to break away from the tyranny of the USA, while also adding, perhaps snidely, that, if it were them, they would’ve done the whole thing a lot better.

In the aftermath, let’s examine which if any of these positions proved correct. 

Certainly there was a massacre. That much is undeniable with the pictures and videos making their way through the internet (pictures and videos, mind you, that have not found their way onto broadcast news stations). An attack that the POTUSOAOEB ordered — he admitted that much himself — and that the Triumvirate and a smattering of lesser-known capes as well as un-powered police perpetrated. As far as any observer can tell, there was no attempt to arrest the “leaders” of the BBAZ, nor any citizens. The order seemed to be: kill on sight.

MLs, at the sight of these photos, might be tempted to say, “Told you so. Without a Revolutionary Elite, without a Vanguard formed from politicized, militant forces, this sort of brutality is unavoidable.” To say such a thing, however, would be to forget that indeed there _were_ politicized, militant forces in the form of Skitter (whose real name is, since her death, widely available, but which I will not print here because I feel it would compromise my journalistic integrity) and her gang of powerful parahumans. Anyone could look at the names of the combatants — Circus, Miss Militia(!), Grue, Imp, Regent, Telegra, Snakewhip, to name just a few — and see that in Brockton Bay at the time there was a military presence that rivaled that of a small nation. In this instance, it seems that anything short of a divine power would have fallen to the might of the Triumvirate, et al. 

On the other hand, even a cursory glance at the information about the activities in the Zone would reveal that the actors within made mistakes. Many mistakes. Even at the outset, the decision to have the shift from the neo-feudalist, kleptocratic “government” of the Undersiders’ territory to the vaguely anarchistic society of the BBAZ come from a dictate delivered by Skitter herself is baffling. Thinkers from Marx to Bakunin agree: a capital-R Revolution must be worker-led. And whatever Skitter was, she was certainly not a worker.

The BBAZ, too, struggled in its infancy to maintain amnesty with State forces. Even on day one, they couldn’t manage to avoid a lethal encounter with police — ironically, reports seem to indicate that the officer was one Miss Militia who pulled the trigger — which, although the blame surely rests at the feet of the local PRT, did not bode well for the young Zone. Only days later, the “leadership” thought it wise to go after one of the largest fish-processing plants on the entire eastern seaboard. Before, the Undersiders had reached a sort of equilibrium with the local law-enforcement. BBAZ couldn’t go a week, it seems, without provoking the State to a brutal, brutal response.

Rumours abound, too, about other factors that led to the Zone’s downfall. Conspiracies about _agents provocateurs,_ confidential informants, even Soviet influence. Some of these theories hold more water than others, but all signs seem to point in one direction: the Brockton Bay Autonomous Zone was doomed to fail from the very beginning.

So what are we to make of all this? Is it that radical, revolutionary politics is simply the wrong answer? That if we are to have any hope of lessening the hellishness of this nightmare world we must make every effort to avoid upsetting the bourgeois State, or else face their extreme might? I think that would be a foolish lesson to take away from this event. 

For all their failures, the BBAZ achieved some successes as well. For one, for all their detractors, they bolstered not only the morale but the numbers of myriad left-wing movements in the US. Organizations such as Occupy Wallstreet, IWW, #BlackLivesMatter, and other Leftist/antiracist/antifascist groups all report a significant uptick in either membership numbers or event attendance. While surely this can’t be attributed solely to the actions of Skitter and her posse, it’s difficult to believe they didn’t play a major role. 

The effects of the news-coverage of the Zone on the American psyche also cannot be overstated. Think of the hope the sight of liberated workers and formerly homeless in warm homes gave those on the butt-end of this system of extreme laissez-faire neoliberal capitalism. Nothing frightens the ruling class more than optimism. And now there will forever be in the mind of the American proletariat — indeed, the worldwide proletariat — the notion of: _what if…?_

Let us turn now to the life of the central figure of this story, Skitter, in order to strengthen this burgeoning sense of hope. In the recent _Washington Post_ exposé, many of her personal details were revealed to the public, the most shocking of which was that she was only sixteen at the time of her death. Or is that so shocking?

Increasingly America’s youth is becoming amenable to socialism. A recent _Axios_ poll1 discovered that people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four were more likely to have a positive response to the word “socialism” than to “capitalism.” And why shouldn’t they? Young people have witnessed the brutal consequences of extreme austerity measures, neoliberalism run rampant, the forsaking of environmental concerns in favor of the concerns of capital, firsthand. Skitter was born in a center of crumbling American infrastructure. Her father — a union leader — saw up close the effects of the destruction of labor rights in America. She attended severely underfunded public schools — schools which in their many failures created the circumstances that led to Skitter’s trigger event. How was she supposed to react _without_ violence?

Speaking of which, the same exposé (while not making any conclusive statement) went on to highlight Skitter’s medical record, namely her hospitalization due to an incident that seemed to involve a bullying campaign carried out by her classmates at her Brockton Bay high school. My own investigation has revealed that the (alleged) bullies experienced no repercussions for their actions, likely due to the “zero tolerance” policies that have infected the American public school systems. I find these details interesting because they speak to a larger culture of schoolyard bullying and domination in the United States, especially as it relates to its foreign policy.

David Graeber’s piece, “The Bully’s Pulpit,”2 is enormously instructive on this point. Relevant, too, because it begins with a discussion of US war crimes in the Gulf War, a story which the current President struggled to bury in his 2008 campaign. His involvement in the so-called “Highway of Death” massacre in Iraq nearly sunk him, an event about which Graeber writes, 

> The retreating Iraqis on the “Highway of Death” and other main drags of American carnage were just kids who didn’t want to fight.
> 
> But maybe it was this very refusal that’s prevented the Iraqi soldiers from garnering more sympathy, not only in elite circles, where you wouldn’t expect much, but also in the court of public opinion. On some level, let’s face it: these men were cowards. They got what they deserved.3

Graeber goes on to document the culture of “Elementary (School) Structures of Domination,” from which this extreme disdain for “cowardice” arises:

> Bullying is more like a refraction of its authority. To begin with an obvious point: children in school can’t leave. Normally, a child’s first instinct upon being tormented or humiliated by someone much larger is to go someplace else. Schoolchildren, however, don’t have that option. If they try persistently to flee to safety, the authorities will bring them back. This is one reason, I suspect, for the stereotype of the bully as teacher’s pet or hall monitor: even when it’s not true, it draws on the tacit knowledge that the bully does depend on the authority of the institution in at least that one way—the school is, effectively, holding the victims in place while their tormentors hit them. This dependency on authority is also why the most extreme and elaborate forms of bullying take place in prisons, where dominant inmates and prison guards fall into alliances.
> 
> Even more, bullies are usually aware that the system is likely to punish any victim who strikes back more harshly. Just as a woman, confronted by an abusive man who may well be twice her size, cannot afford to engage in a “fair fight,” but must seize the opportune moment to inflict as much as damage as possible on the man who’s been abusing her—since she cannot leave him in a position to retaliate—so too must the schoolyard bullying victim respond with disproportionate force, not to disable the opponent, in this case, but to deliver a blow so decisive that it makes the antagonist hesitate to engage again.4

Such an analysis can help explain Skitter’s “criminal” past. She had (nearly) come of age in such an environment, where the only possible avenue of justice was violence. Pundits who decry the foundation of the BBAZ and other similar actions as “barbaric” forms of political expression, who insist that the only effective means of making progress is to work within the system, betray, in such a claim, that they have never experienced the kind of torment Skitter had.

Graeber writes, too, that these ideas are not only instilled in the school system but in the very bedrock of our culture, our fiction, our moral system, a problem which has only been exacerbated by our superheroic present:

> For one thing, because nearly every genre of popular fiction they are likely to be exposed to tells them it will. Comic book superheroes routinely step in to say, “Hey, stop beating on that kid”—and invariably the culprit does indeed turn his wrath on them, resulting in all sorts of mayhem. (If there is a covert message in such fiction, it is surely along the lines of: “You had better not get involved in such matters unless you are capable of taking on some monster from another dimension who can shoot lightning from its eyes.”) The “hero,” as deployed in the U.S. media, is largely an alibi for passivity. This first occurred to me when watching a small-town TV newscaster praising some teenager who’d jumped into a river to save a drowning child. “When I asked him why he did it,” the newscaster remarked, “he said what true heroes always say, ‘I just did what anyone would do under the circumstances.’” The audience is supposed to understand that, of course, this isn’t true. Anyone would not do that. And that’s okay. Heroes are extraordinary. It’s perfectly acceptable under the same circumstances for you to just stand there and wait for a professional rescue team.5

I have cited this article at such length in order to prove that Skitter, and all the oppression she experienced in her life, is not a unique case. Every young American has gone through a similar ordeal, and they are fed up, they are not content to sit idly while they let their superpowered leaders step in on their behalf. This fact, coupled with the increasing popular appeal of socialism, gives me a great deal of hope. Hope that in our youth lies the keys to a better future.

Now is not the time for the kind of internecine squabbling that has killed so many left-wing movements in the past. Now, in this moment of powerful distrust for our capitalist overlords and the literally superpowerful military force of the State that keeps them in power, is the time for the utmost unity. Was the Brockton Bay Autonomous Zone a “good idea” in the grand scheme of things? On one hand, no — even if the intentions were pure, the mistakes made were far too numerous for genuine praise. On the other hand, though: who the hell cares? If the actions of Skitter and her comrades at all shifted the perspective of onlookers from, “This is the best world that is feasibly possible,” to, “Things could be _so much better than this_ ,” then I would argue that their experiment was an unmitigated success.

Let us let Skitter, in her martyrdom, exert some of her parahuman power on us from beyond the grave. Let her control us the way she did her insect swarm, merge us into a single, unexpectedly powerful, unified force. Let her with our bodies draw an arrow the size of the nation, the size of the world — an arrow pointing forward.

* * *

[1] Salmon, Felix. “More Americans Aged between 18 and 24 Prefer ‘Socialism’ to ‘Capitalism.’” _Axios_ , 27 Jan. 2019, www.axios.com/socialism-capitalism-poll-generation-z-preference-1ffb8800-0ce5-4368-8a6f-de3b82662347.html.

[2] Graeber, David. “The Bully's Pulpit.” _The Baffler_ , July 2015, thebaffler.com/salvos/bullys-pulpit.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick(ish) update because I just wanna be done with it aaaaahhhh!


End file.
